About a month ago, I wrote a commentary about the seemingly
insignificant “sport” of hockey. It was written on about a
fifth-grade reading level so that it would be on the same level as
even the most learned hockey fan. To my shock and utter amazement,
not only were a handful of hockey fans able to decipher the really
big words, like “collective” and “ice,” but they were actually
intelligent enough to post a couple of replies on our web site,
(and a couple which weren’t fit to post). But have you ever seen a
pissed-off hockey fan? It’s really quite amusing.

They spout some expletive-laden tirade about one’s father or
mother in the general direction of the dissenter, then quickly
retreat to their beverage of choice and sulk about yet another
two-line pass. Or, to put it in hockey fan terms: “You A$%, sit
you’re a$% down and let me enjoy my F*&#$%@ beer … Oh man
Pronger, what kind of F*&#$%@ pass was that?”

Reading hockey fan hate mail is painful. I felt dumber after
reading most of it, and the only one that was coherent, paraphrased
for the kids, of course, simply stated that when I was born my
parents weren’t married (I think you can figure that one out,
Gretzky).

On a sidenote, a lot of these letters reminded me of some
unforgettable cheerleader hate mail I received back in the day: “I
want to kill you!”, only the “i” was dotted with a heart.

So, in honor of all five of the hockey fans whose lives seem to
be forever ruined by my last commentary, and in a nod to ignorant
fans everywhere, here are the current top five worst fans, by city.
In descending order:

5) Denver fans. IN-COM-PLETE. More like IN-COM-PETENT. Why do
Bronco fans get such a kick out of proving that “Hooked on Phonics”
truly did work for them? It’s just another “Mile-High Salute” to
their ignorance. At least they still go out and support their teams
when they are losing though. Which is more than we can say for
….,

4) Miami fans. You know, for a baseball team that was averaging
fewer than 9,000 fans a game for the first half of the season, they
sure did turn out in droves for the post-season. Of course, they
can always blame Wayne Huzienga and his royal dismantling of their
beloved Marlins after the ’97 season but, lest we forget, that that
was six years ago! And it isn’t as if they had a great deal of
history to play up before then. Heck, six years before then they
didn’t even have a team. Get over it. Move on.

3) St. Louis fans. I went to a Cardinal game last year and
patiently watched as it took the better part of a Matt Morris start
for the crowd to finally start the wave. That’s two hours of a guy
down in front of his section yelling “1, 2, 3.., GOOOO”. It’s
almost as comical as the inevitable cheers emitting from fans EVERY
time a Cardinal hits a routine fly ball to center. “I mean, it
looked like it was gonna go.”

Let’s not even talk about Rams fans.

2) Philadelphia fans. They booed Santa Claus and the
bootilicious, home-grown Philly product Beyonce when she came to a
76ers game to sing the national anthem. They cheer injuries, and
they always seem to believe that, even though the big screen shows
them that it really wasn’t a catch, their wideout really did catch
the ball.

1) Boston fans. Poor Boston. Never was there another city that
had such a conflict of interest cheering for their team. On one
hand the Sox could with the World Series, but on the other hand
THEY COULD WIN THE WORLD SERIES! And then where would they be? Just
another Anaheim or Phoenix: A FoxSports Trivia Answer during game
three of next year’s ALDS. And they can’t necessarily call the
Patriots their own because the Pats belong to all of New England.
Though, they do have the Boston Marathon, but marathons are almost
as questionable of a sport as hockey.

You’ll notice that I did not mention the hockey teams and their
subsequent fans in the above-mentioned cities, and there is a
reason for that: no matter how bad the fans situated in the above
cities are, they are by no means bad enough to be grouped into the
same category as hockey fans.

So, let the grammatically incorrect postings begin.