Post by ShadowAngel on Jan 11, 2016 21:45:54 GMT
As far as fans traveling to away games in distant cities, if you show me a group of fans that travels from one end of the European continent to the other end on a regular basis just to attend sporting events, I'll show you a group of rich people. Average Joe or Average Johann isn't globetrotting just to attend games.
There are fans like that and they are your "average joes", they are the die-hard dedicated fans. They certainly do exist.
From 1860 i can give you two examples. One is Fritz Fehleng, probably the best known fan of the club, he hasn't missed a single game (be it league, cup, international, friendly matches, whatever) since 1970. Roman Woell is the other well known fan, has missed by his count only 20 games since 1972 because of his job or sickness. They even follow the team to all training camps (that are usually held in other countries, be it Austria, Spain, Turkey or whatever) and they managed that despite having a regular average job and a family.
Those two can tell you the most interesting stories about traveling by train for several days to Bulgaria or Belarus and what an adventure it was to even get there.
While in the US fans don't even make it to the home games. I certainly find it always funny, when teams announce a sell out but you can see a ton of empty seats...empty for the duration of the match, so no case of "they just went to grab some beer".
Okay... sounds like those "fans" got schooled when some players who could really play showed up. I've never heard of Germans being great hockey players, no surprise there. What's your point, Germans like second-rate hockey better? What should the owners have done, kept the team there when the people wouldn't buy tickets?
Actually ESC Munich was a way more dominant team even, they defeated clubs by 10 goal differentials sometimes. The Barons where full of NHL-Rejects and Has-Beens that saw it as a job and played equally lazily and boring and besides, the DEL is full of international players, nobody got "schooled".
No, like i said the main problem why the team wasn't accepted was because it was created with this american "win it or forget it"-mentality with a team of bought out players that had no connection to munich whatsoever, the whole team having this "american"-vibe to it (english name) and was overpriced while having no tradition and nothing. The american mentality just doesn't work in Europe, this "buy success by brute force and money, force your way to the top at all means, rubber duck over people constantly, don't care about casuals as long as you remain victorious" - The reason why the NFL Europe failed so horrible or even american companies like Walmart (they tried to conquer Germany by brute force, cheap prices, lots of advertisements while having unhappy workers, after 4 years and about 2 billion dollars lost they ran away with their tail between their legs because we simply didn't like that attitude)
As for german hockey players. There are tons of successful german hockey players in the NHL:
Olaf Kölzig for example, he won the Vezina Trophy in 2000 and the King Clancy Trophy in 2006 and remains as one of the best Hockey goalies in history (winning the Vezina in 2000 with Dominik Hasek and Patrick Roy at their peak is very impressive, especially playing on the not so great Washington Capitals)
Uwe Krupp, Stanley Cup Winner with the Avalanche, first german player to be named an All-Star in the NHL
Marco Sturm, another All-Star for the Sharks and Bruins
Dennis Seidenberg, Stanley Cup Champion with the Bruins and regarded as one of the best defensive players in the NHL today
Christian Ehrhoff who currently plays for the Penguins, another well-regarded player
Other players are Marcel Goc and Jochen Hecht who where established NHL players and of course Walt Tkaczuk who was the first german NHL player in the 60s.
Yes, European countries are older than the US, good point. Still with the oldest leagues and teams there are rivalries that span many decades. You can cherry pick examples all you like, no point in debating that a team that has only existed for 10 years should have a rivalry lasting 150. I could name long-term rivalries in various sports all day. St. Louis - Chicago, Boston - New York, every team in the NFC North.
Some of those aren't true sports rivalries. Like Detroit - Chicago is just a city rivalry that crosses over into sport, same with L.A. - San Francisco or New York - Boston. That's comparable to Munich and Augsburg being two cities that have a rivalry and of course it spills over into sports.
But real team rivalries? In the USA most of the time they seem to come and go at will or are measured by the success of the team.
There are even articles titled "defunct rivalries" like Bears - Cardinals, Raiders - Seahawks, which makes me wonder why they go "defunct" and how that is even possible.
It reminds me a lot of Pro Wrestling where two guys hate each other only to become a friendly team 3 months later and that to me is simply completely wrong.
Watching soccer fans idiotically waving national flags is disturbing to me
I don't see anything wrong with using national flags during national games when the national team is playing, you're from the country, you support your country.
During regular league games and even international cup games (Champions League, Euroleague) you practically never see national flags, you only see team flags (another thing you practically never see in the USA though) and i don't see anything wrong with that.
I simply write down my experiences.
I've been to Detroit for hockey 21 times so far, also watched a game in Tampa once, a friend of my travels a lot to Boston also for Hockey and he basically tells me the same in terms of atmophere and the "fans" he encounters there.