Shark Fans Who Are Band Wagons and the Art of Being Truly Dedicated, Again

Today, an interesting happened today. No, it was not writing this post, even though it was good to write something down after a week and a half long absence. It occurred when I was on facebook. I’m not really on facebook that much, I just mainly use it to pimp out my articles and see what friends are up to once in a while. I decided to give up that whole status update a long time ago after I realized status updates show: a) people aren’t that insightful b) people aren’t that interesting and c) if you tell them point a) or b) they’ll probably think your some pretentious twit even though they are the ones who are pretentious because they think they’re so absorbed in their self importance that they find it offensive you don’t think they’re just not that interest. Ugh, facebook has created a generation of big headed ninnies.

Anyway, the interesting thing I noticed was…. where the hell did all these hockey fans come from?? Every single status update I saw was something complaining about how the Shark’s blew it yesterday. I’m from San Jose, so naturally, a lot of my friends are from the area. However, as I recall, most of them don’t really have a strong hockey acumen. I doubt if they’ve even seen a Shark’s game in its entirety. Hell, I even doubt any of them saw YESTERDAY’S game in its entirety. Yet, I’m sure they did quick check on ESPN.com, saw the Shark’s lost, and then bam, the flood of facebook statuses came out. Or even worse, maybe they didn’t even check the score, maybe they just saw on other people’s statuses that the Sharks lost and they hopped on the comment bandwagon just like they hopped on the Sharks playoff bandwagon.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against rooting for a team if you’re not a die hard fan. There’s nothing wrong with it. You do it, I do it, we all do it. I’m certainly rooting for the Shark’s to win it all, even though, admittedly I haven’t watched a single Sharks game all season. However, the difference between me and so called bandwagons is, sure I’ll root, but I’m not going to sit and complain about the Sharks or act like I’m the biggest fan ever when in fact, I know I’m not. I’ll be sad about the Sharks losing, but I won’t be angry. You know why? Because I’m a fair weather hockey fan, not a die hard one, and only die hard ones get mad about it. I’m not die hard, and neither are most of the people who are moping about it as we speak. Instead, I’ll just say “that’s too bad” then concentrate on teams that are really important to me like the Cal Golden Bears, and the Kansas City Chiefs. (Yeah, I get crap for that too, so don’t bother).

And I definitely won’t take the time to update my stinkin’ facebook status either.

I also would like to point out that even though I admit I’m not a die hard fan, I’m probably more die hard than the so called “die hard” fans I’ve been observing. I can remember the time when I was really into hockey (after the Mighty Duck movies came out) and I followed the Sharks’ miraculous first round upsets against powerhouses Detroit and Calgary. I remember when Irbe was our man, and Friesen was the young rookie. So suck on that.

Last year, I wrote an article about Laker fans and how there was a growing trend of bandwagonry in So Cal. I’m going to go on a limb now and say that this trend is also true for the bay. It is because of all this Shark hooplah that’s been surfacing? No, it’s because of the lack of hoopla for another team that was on the gaining momentum: the Warriors. Remember this?


Where are all the “We Believe” t-shirts now? Probably on the bottom of a pile of dirty rags after it was used to dry up someone’s car. It’s such a shame for real Warrior fans. You may think its rather snobby, but think about logistics. Imagine if you were so dedicated to a team that you watched every single game, knew every single player, and understood every single play, while they stunk. You stuck by them through all the hard times. Now your team finally makes the playoffs, and you’re so excited to get tickets, only to see that all the tickets are gone thanks to a bunch of 5 minute fan cronies sporting their “We Believe” t-shirt. Yeah, I would be pissed to.

In short, the point of this article is not to chastise people for rooting for a particular team, just to chastise people for all the over reaction for something they don’t really care about. In the end, if the Sharks lost, it’s not the end of the world for most of you, but for some people it is, and you will never understand why that is until you earn your fan stripes just like they did.