Top Ten Stupid Things Hockey Fans Do

I live in a country that is packed to the rafters with hockey fans. This list compiles the stupidest, most ignorant, and most annoying things that they have been known to do (mostly in arenas during the game).
The Top Ten
1 Boo at everything

If you're watching a Montreal Canadiens home game, expect lots of booing. They will boo if a clean check is given to one of their players and the opposing player doesn't get a penalty. Reversely, they will boo if one of their players gets a penalty when they darn well deserve it. They will even boo at their own players if they aren't playing well enough. Don't let any Canadiens fan fool you, they are not the most loyal hockey fan base by a long shot. They can be downright miserable towards their own team.

BKAllmighty-I remember the Carolina fans doing the exact same things when the Hurricanes made the finals in '02, the difference? Many people in that area knew little about hockey, the people of Montreal know their hockey as well as anyone.

2 Bang on the glass

If you watch hockey enough, chances are you've noticed the "BANG BANG BANG BANG" that happens about fifty times every game. That's the problem with rinkside seats. The fans are ALWAYS banging the stupid glass whenever a player skates by. What are they thinking will happen? Are they expecting Sidney Crosby to go "Hey! Those guys are trying to get my attention. I am going to go and strike a pose in front of them". Honestly, it's the most annoying and boneheaded thing during a game. The stupid sound echoes throughout the whole arena when you're actually there during a game, too.

3 Throw stuff on the ice

After a hat trick (3 goals by the same player in a game) it's an expected response from the fans to throw your hat onto the ice. But just because you know a great place to go and buy fresh dead octopus from doesn't mean you should sneak it into a game and chuck it on the ice to delay the game. The same goes for chickens (in one case there was a live one thrown), dead bats, rubber bats, rubber anything else, and food. It's a nusence for the cleaning crew, it can throw a team off rhythm if they're showing strong offensive promise, and it can get you thrown out of the arena. Just don't do it.

Remember a while back when the Flames were playing in Edmonton and some fan behind the Flames bench dumped a drink onto the head of the assistant coach and Sasha Lakovic jumped over the glass to beat him up? Look it up on YouTube, it's hilarious!

A man at a Edmonton Oilers game threw a pizza box on the ice because there was no goal, but they won 2-1 in overtime anyway.

4 Start riots

Yes. Us famously-polite Canadians can even start riots. When the Vancouver Canucks lost in the finals against the Boston Bruins back in 2011, all of the angry fans watching the game from the streets took to burning cars and smashing building windows. That was a really proud moment for our country, guys. Nice job. It was expensive, it was pointless, and it was pretty darn stupid.

Vancouver riots when they lose, Montreal when they win... apart from costing your city a lot of money, tarnishing its reputation and potentially getting yourself arrested, what does that accomplish? Certainly not the score of the game you're rioting over!

This. Pretty much everything else on this list is dumb within the game of hockey or just silly. Starting riots is illegal and hurts your own city and people that have no outcome on the game.

5 Support fighting in hockey

I know there will be a bunch of pro-fighting people shouting angry comments at me for this but supporting fighting hockey is just downright irresponsible. We are teaching our next generation to punch each other in the face, give concussions, and cause life-altering mental injuries, and for what? "Because it's part of the game and it gives our team confidence", they say. What does that even mean? What should give a team confidence is knowing that they are the faster, stronger (mentally, more than physically) and more skillful team and that they are superior players who know what sport they're playing. Hockey. I don't see how acting like brainless savages contributes anything to a game that is supposed to represent good sportsmanship and top-quality skill. I will never condone fighting in hockey. And if I haven't convinced you, just talk to the families of the players who committed suicide after obtaining brain damage from all the trauma to the head that they received from fighting. By the way, that is scientific fact.

6 Support cheating

People like Don Cherry believe that a player can take a "good penalty" every now and then. By that, he means that sometimes it's good for the players to cheat in order to "send a message" to the other team so that they'll get scared and stop cleanly body checking. What a load of crap that is, eh? If referees did the sensible thing and actually blow the whistle every time a player did something illegal and immoral like charge, board, or slash another player, the game's speed and average skill-level would sky rocket and make the game better. Players whose careers exist only to act as "enforcers" and slow down opposing players by cheating would cease to exist.

When I was playing hockey as a teen, I tried to play by the rules and got very few penalties. That being said, I never made it as a hockey player though I had more than enough talent to do so. One thing I figured out only after I stopped playing competitively unfortunately, is that sometimes, it's better to take a penalty, than to allow a scoring chance. Bobby Orr, the greatest player of all time in my opinion, had six 100 penatly minute seasons in only a nine year career.

7 Act as fairweather fans

If you're going to call yourself a hockey fan, don't flip flop from team to team when the team you follow isn't doing so well. So many "fans" that I know will swear that one team is "their" team and then switch over to a totally different one when that first team loses three games in a row. Pick a team (for good reasons, not just because you like their Jersey colour or whatever) and stick with them. Or risk never being asked to take part in your friend's hockey conversations (of course, it's ok to like other teams besides you're #1 choice).

8 Blindly hate "rival" teams

So many Leafs fans hate the Habs (Canadiens) and visa versa. Why? Because they have a rivalry. But I, being a Leafs fan, will watch and root for the Habs if they're a strong, skillful, respectable team, no matter what the history between them and my team is. I will love the Leafs unconditionally because they're my team and they will always be #1, but since their playoff chances are shy of slim I have to accept that another team has to replace them once the playoffs start. Right now that team is Detroit (another rival of Toronto). They are a solid team and deserve to be appreciated for that very reason.

When I was a kid, I was a bruins fan and I'll never forget the Habs fan in my class in 6th grade who told me he hated the Bruins because Chris Nilan was there... not long after he said this, Nilan was traded to the Habs... do you think for a second he started hating the Habs because Nilan was there?

9 Hate on Sidney Crosby

This one had to be here since so many people put the hurt on Crosby because he doesn't fight or because blah blah blah. He's one of the best players in the world so people need to quit picking on him for no reason. I'd like to see anyone who openly bashes on him try to play a game of one-on-one and see what happens.

When you're the best at what you do, you're going to be hated no matter what. Many greats have been classy, had much integrity, donated time and money to charities, yet they were still hated by many. It's a side effect of being great, people inevitably get jealous.

I absolutely agree with you. There's so many people out there who say Crosby sucks when they don't know the first thing about him.

10 Judge a player's quality based on whether they've won a Stanley Cup or not

Nick Kypreos (a player-turned-hockey analyst on Sportsnet) has been known to frequently misjudge players based on their lack of a Stanley Cup win. Now, I know he's not a fan but many fans do the same thing he does. Kypreos has criticized Mats Sundin (the former captain of the Leafs who was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility) by saying "Did he ever win a cup? ". Well, no he didn't. But let me tell you what he DID do. He remained active for 20 years (most players play for less than 6 years on average), he was the first Swedish player to reach 1000 points, he is the only Swedish player to score 500 goals, he has the most points and goals out of any Swedish player, he is one of three players to score over 20 goals each season for his first 17 seasons, he was the first European-born player to be drafted first overall in the NHL entry draft, he is (tied with one other) the 21st highest goal-scoring NHL player of all time, he is 34th in career assists, ...more

This one is very stupid, hockey is a team game and there's no such thing as a one man team. When THN listed the top 50 players of all time in 1998, Dionne was only ranked 38th... look at his stats, he belongs in the top 20 easily, maybe higher, why was he 38th? never went deep into the playoffs! It's the only reason. But then, look at the teams he had, he was lucky just to get into the playoffs with what he had, which makes his numbers that much more impressive.

The Contenders
11 Hit players with pucks

When Hockey Players get angry and fight, they can hit the other players with their pucks.

12 Get drunk and fall on someone
13 Yell "SHOOOOT" whenever someone touches the puck
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