SCF: We Shouldn't Be Rooting For Vancouver Or Boston

When I wrote the first Stanley Cup Final game post, I mentioned that we should all be pulling for Vancouver because, well – for lack of a better term – eff Boston. The feedback I initially noticed was “What? This ‘Merica man! U-S-A! U-S-A! Stars and stripes forever!”

So I backed off my usual eff Boston stance and got swept up in the Burrows bite and exciting play of my boy Brad Marchand, which I’ve been told is very similar to that of Villain Burrows.

So imagine my surprise when Jonah Keri wrote in GQ that everyone was rooting against Boston. Dammit if I didn’t agree with every reason we should be rooting against the Bruins. Still, I felt that the anti-Boston sentiment was outweighed online by the jingoistic tendencies of the American public. Could I be over-generalizing based on our small sample size of a vocal hockey fan community? Highly likely, but I still couldn’t see the usual Masshole hate that we see in other sports.

Then Bill Simmons owned up to being a Bruins front-runner at Grantland. Of course this came after the picture of he and his father Samuel Langhorne Simmons celebrating the Bruins destruction of Vancouver on Wednesday. It all came rushing back to me. This is why we root against Boston – Because the most famous fan in America and

Bruce Arthur at the National Post wrote these words (among others):

Of course, not everybody will agree with this. Some Canucks fans will throw popcorn and peanuts, and some Bruins fans will bellow various insults related to your personal appearance and perhaps your sexual orientation, and even the many sane fans on both sides will be displeased. To the sane ones, our apologies. To those various overheated nuts, don’t worry: We’ll get to you eventually.

As for the moral high ground, it would be easier to find with scuba gear. It’s nice to cheer for teams that you feel deserve your affection for some reason other than success alone, unless you’re the kind of person who roots for the New York Yankees or Goldman Sachs. In this Stanley Cup final, that is not nearly so easy.

So the answer is clear – we shouldn’t be rooting for either of these teams. The players and their fans are all, quite frankly, assholes. No matter who wins, there’s a reason to be miserable. Just remember, somebody also lost. And they sucked anyway.