By Dylan Matthias, Sports Editor
How much is too much?
Forgive the cliché, but it’s something we’re wondering around the Gazette this week.
Last week, we brought you a sit-down interview with Jeff Pond, president of Dal Football and his (and others’) thoughts on how Dal could generate some fan support. This week, we bring you a story about fan culture gone overboard when Neil Hooper, King’s athletics director, was sprayed with a water gun at a rugby game against Mount Allison.
We don’t want to sensationalize this. It was a water gun, and Neil and the rugby teams will be just fine. Hooper has a point, though, when he says to sports reporter Allyson Kenny that it “could have been a brick, not water.” And if a rowdy, probably drunk fan can get a brightly-coloured large water gun over to the bench, what else could be hidden?
ACAA rugby is a fantastic thing. Well-supported, high-quality university sport. It is a spectacle. It should be—that’s why people come to see it. Last week, Jeff Pond suggested that Dalhousie games need to be “events.” Spectacular events, even.
Gazette Sports agrees. I agree. I want to see fans cheer and jeer. I want Wickwire Field, the DalPlex, and Memorial Arena to be tough places to play. Why do I want that? Because it’s a story and we tell stories. And also because, somewhere deep down in my J-School-hardened soul, I want Dal to win.
Last year, I was elated that a residence group came out to support the Tigers soccer teams. They cheered and they taunted. For a short time, Wickwire was a tough place to play because players focused on fans and not on soccer. We accepted that, though. It was a good thing, and it showed us what we can be.
Where does that line get drawn? When there are students in a community, they act like young people. Young people can be rowdy. When we talk about building a community of support at Dal, we’re building a community of students.
What kind of supporters are we? Everyone wants to see the Tigers win, which means the other team losing. The athletes are passionate and so are the fans. Both love their school. Passionate people, though, occasionally do stupid things. They yell at players. They yell at the ref. They bring water guns to sporting events. Somewhere in there is a line, and it may take an incident at Dal for it to be drawn clearly.
University sport is not simply a way for the intelligentsia of society to exercise their mind. That thinking is not only outdated, it’s also a myth. The thinking that fans will simply come out and cheer on the Tigers belongs to that myth. The fans are invested in the game, too.
Next month, Dal will host homecoming. On one spectacular day, there will be a Dal rugby game followed by a soccer double-header and a Dal football game. It will be a festival of sport and community, an overload for sports-addicted Gazette writers like me and for students and alumni looking to celebrate Dal. If we’re fortunate, everyone will leave with a sense of school pride, the Tigers will leave with several more points, and our reporters will retire to write out more 600-word match reports.
We all know, though, that what happened at Mount Allison could easily happen that night, too. It only takes one. We all—athletes, officials, leagues and fans have to decide what we’re comfortable with and where we draw the line.
Ultimately, it’s only a game. Sometimes, though, it seems like a lot more.
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