In the world of sports journalism, there are a billion opinions. Some are good, some are bad. Some are spot-on, others are way out in left field. And sometimes, you come across a writer or broadcaster who will go to extensive lengths and make ridiculous claims, over-exaggerate things, and openly insult players, fans, cities, or anything else to get notoriety in the journalism world. (Jack Edwards, Dan Shaughnessey, etc...)An article was brought to my attention on a Rangers blog I like to frequent. It was posted by someone who goes by the name of KFC and the article was written on Barstool Sports blog. The title of the article was called "Hockey Fans are Hipsters," and in it, Mr. KFC went on a great rant with such flowery language about how hockey fans are uppity tightwads about their sport. To sum up, basically KFC stated that hockey fans like to get really defensive of their sport whenever someone who does not share the same kind of year-round attentiveness, and that whenever someone who doesn't know as much about it starts to follow it, hockey fans get on their "High Horses" and berate whoever makes said claim.
Before I even begin to cut into this post, I'm going to assume KFC has a large resume of blogs (just assuming, didn't care enough to really search him out) that have gotten way more attention than anything I have ever posted on my blog. And I'm OK with that. This is not my job to run this blog, this is merely something I like to do in my spare time because a) I love hockey, and b) I love to write. I'm also going to assume that perhaps KFC gets a lot of views on his blogs considering the copious amount of comments from people who stumbled upon his post, and that he might get a bit of a profit out of it, considering Barstool Sports may get a bit more notoriety than this blog may get. If either of those are the case, and if KFC does have more posts like this one though, it is a damn shame he gets that much attention, or might even get paid for writing this article.
Now, onto the article. The main point KFC touched upon was the uppity-ness of hockey fans. Calling the sport a low-rent side show among the Big 4 American sports. Anybody who's ever watch a sport in America knows that hockey is the least popular, this is not news to us dude. No other sports league in America has as many players from different countries like the NHL does. Over 40 different nationalities in the history of the NHL have played a game to this day. It's not dominated by Americans, so yeah, it's going to get a lot less notoriety in America.
Next, KFC went on a tirade about how he is constantly berated by fans of hockey anytime he posts something related to hockey, claiming he doesn't know enough about the sport to talk about it. KFC claims that since the hockey world has been ignored for so long, and that no one really cares about it, that is why people get so annoyed when people like KFC try to talk about it, as if this is a new concept to him. I for example, am not the biggest baseball fan. I played ball when I was a kid, I know the rules and stats, but I do not watch it regularly. The farthest my knowledge of the MLB goes as far as who won and who lost last night. Now, imagine I went up to a group of people who have never met me that follow way more baseball than I do, and tried to convince them that Ken Griffey Jr. should come out of retirement because he could probably still compete. Would the gentlemen I'm relaying this information to listen to me? For a moment, yes, until they realize that I have no idea what I'm talking about because I'm not an avid baseball fan. It's simple social science; people do not listen to people talk about stuff they don't know much about.
Has being a fourth-string sport made hockey fans a little bitter? Maybe. But we are not opposed to anyone who wants to watch the game, learn, and possibly write articles about it without writing it off immediately saying "nobody cares about hockey." What makes hockey fans reluctant about new fans are people, like KFC, who like to poke the hot issue that hockey will never be as important because not as many people care about it.
Hockey athletes are some of the best in the world. It takes a special kind of person to be able to skate on ice, avoid getting body-checked, and be able to handle a puck on a stick all at the same time. Unlike football where some peoples jobs are "be fat and clog up the line so the running-back can't get through." Or unlike basketball where some peoples jobs are "be lucky to be born 7'1 and dunk it without jumping." Or unlike baseball where some peoples jobs are "go sit in the bullpen until the 9th, come out and throw 10 pitches to win the game for us." And until a person sits on steps on the ice, and takes a hit, we hockey fans who know a lot about the sport aren't going to like it when people who's writing skills go as far as dropping F-bombs every sentence try to bash our favorite sport.As far as KFC goes, the man really doesn't deserve to be able to post on any sort of blog, and he certainly does not deserve to talk about hockey until he's educated enough about the sport where his opinion of it's fans will actually hold some water. I don't care for his opinions or credentials because if any of the rest of his writing is like this piece of water-trash I came across, there is no real reason for his opinions to matter to anyone. So from all of us here at the Clinic, here's to you, KFC. You're and idiot.
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