The Fan in All of Us
Colby Cosh has a bone to pick with Bob McKenzie.
From McKenzie:
People always ask me if I have a favorite team that I cheer for.
The answer is no, as the fan in me died a long time ago.
From Cosh:
Really? What’s left behind then? The fatuous, attention-seeking child? The strutting, mercenary whore?
McKenzie certainly doesn’t mean that he no longer gets pleasure from hockey: he’s using the word “fan” as a pejorative, the way Nietzsche used “human.” McK’s saying he has transcended, attained a higher state. The fan had to die to make way for the expert. It’s kind of like a political columnist describing himself as no longer a mere voter.
Instinctively, I’d like to agree with Cosh, who’s closer the “average guy” compared to McKenzie (in a hockey-world sense), but I can’t here.
The more I’m involved in hockey, the less of a team fan I seem to become. It’s not because I feel myself rising above it, it’s mostly the personal connections I’ve made. Teams I might have despised in the past were now organizations that I associated with friendly management and players. Generic players in jerseys suddenly became decent guys, or not so decent, but the distribution of them around the league suddenly determined who I was cheering for, and it wasn’t just about team logos or colors anymore.
I’m still a fan, it just doesn’t feel the same as it used to. It could be because of friends I’ve made (or people I don’t call my friends), it could be because I’m older, it could be because sometimes I’m so immersed in hockey it feels like a job, and it’s hard to be as excited about a game as it once was.
Bob McKenzie’s one of the most connected men in the hockey world, I can only imagine all the players and executives he knows and how that may affect how he sees the game - and it is McKenzie’s job, and that’s got to change your view as well. No matter how much anyone in sports wants to admit it, it’s different when it’s a job.
If you’re in a sappy mood, throw in an “all fans of the game” line somewhere above.
Obviously Cosh isn’t a fan of McKenzie in general, and he could be right, I don’t speak for McKenzie (nor have I ever spoken to him), but I think these couple of lines were read into a bit too much. When it comes to McKenzie being a fan I think I can understand where he’s coming from, even if I’m not there.
Perhaps some of the budding sports journalists out there can tell me how diving into a sport has affected their fandom (if at all).
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