When fans fail to speak up, bullies get away with it

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/09/2016 (3320 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At the peak of the throw, in the electric hang time between release and reception, it’s easy to forget what pro sport is selling.

The action is where sport is at its best, vivid and connecting. The crowd rears up as the play unfolds, then it either roars or groans.

In a world of blockbuster entertainment, there is nothing quite like it.

What pro sports sells, above all else, is identity. Following a favourite team isn’t just something we do; being a fan is something we become. The price of a jersey serves as a public oath of fealty. The cost of a ticket pays the way into the club.

For the most part, this is all just fun. It is especially engaging in the heart of a stadium, where the emotions of belonging play out in real-life group dynamics. Sure, the athletes are working up a sweat; but it’s the folks in the stands who let off the most steam.

On the other hand, games can be cauldrons of simmering tension. That’s not a knock on the experience, exactly. It’s just what happens when you bubble up a stew of booze, vicarious competition and performative aggression.

It’s all fun and games until sometimes, the pot boils over.

That happened at the Banjo Bowl last weekend, when a nine-year-old boy was jeered out of Investors Group Field. His only crime was wearing green and not even in allegiance to the visiting team.

Afterwards, Janelle-Marie Emonds recounted how her son, Taylor, was harassed with verbal taunts during the game. Two women dumped a beer on his head.

It adds a wrenching twist that Taylor is a Winnipeg fan, who was given Banjo Bowl tickets as a gift. He was even wearing a Bombers T-shirt under his green sweater. Still, if the Bomber fans who harassed him mistook their target, that’s a minor point.

The bigger issue is these were adults who chose to torment a child.

When news of their indiscretion spread, the response was heartening. The Bombers reached out to Emonds and her son with a gift package, and the public was rightly disgusted.

One suspects that somewhere in Winnipeg, the people who harassed Taylor and his mother recognized themselves, if fuzzily and through a headache. Perhaps they felt ashamed.

Some chirping between rival fans is part of the fun. It seems we all agree kids should never be fair game.

We know that, though this incident put the Bombers in the spotlight, this is not a monster that is uniquely bred at IGF. Just two years ago at the MTS Centre, a Winnipeg Jets fan screamed at an 11-year-old boy wearing the jersey of his hero, New York Islanders captain John Tavares.

There are other cases, from other cities. In 2010, after the Cleveland Browns lost at home to the New York Jets, Browns fans taunted and swore at an eight-year-old boy wearing a Jets jersey.

In a particularly repugnant case from January 2015, a group of fans at a hockey game in Rapid City, S.D. reportedly threw beer at a group of 57 Oglala Lakota kids aged nine to 13, telling them to “go back to the rez.” The students, who attended as part of an after-school event, left the game; the only man charged with disorderly conduct was eventually acquitted.

Knowing the potential for this ugliness is out there, how can we help keep our sport events safe?

Staff training is part of the picture. Last year, a 19-year-old woman in an Ottawa Senators jersey was doused with beer and harassed at a Montreal Canadiens home game. She told CBC that when she notified arena attendants, one of them offered a particularly unsatisfactory response: “So what do you want me to do, give them a mean look?”

Teams can help set a tone. When the Winnipeg Jets publicly display a number to report abusive fan behaviour, it helps make folks aware of the process. It serves public notice the team gives no social licence for misbehaviour.

Ultimately, given the sheer volume of crowds at major sports games, security will not be able to catch every incident. Which is where the rest of us come in.

Chances are, the fans who taunted Taylor at the Banjo Bowl weren’t alone. They probably had friends, or at the least nearby observers, who were unsure how to intervene. Maybe they said something later; maybe they did nothing.

In the silence of those around them, the people who harassed the boy learned their actions were sanctioned.

This is where our responsibility to each other begins. The business of pro sport asks us to define ourselves by allegiance to a team; usually, that’s all in good fun. But the passion of rivalry can also turn vicious, and that is where fan divisions must end.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca