The snake crime unit

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/07/2010 (5551 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We’re only moments into the second quarter and the chant is going strong: “Chug that beer,” two dozen beefy men are yelling. “Chug that beer.”

They’re pointing at a lanky kid, his head full of curls, a clear plastic beer cup in his hand and a river of brew running down his cheek. The beer thus quaffed, he rolls his head back, closes his eyes and grins at the sky.

This is the face that describes Section S to me. And while it’s happening, I’m thinking: thou shalt not drink at work.

Thou shalt not drink at work.

Thou shalt not… OK, maybe one beer.

It’s for the good of the snake you see, that infamous plastic cup initiative whose 15 minutes of fame after the Blue Bombers’ July 9 home game led to a ban, a Monty Python-like press conference announcing the ban and a Facebook group calling for its resurrection. If it happens again, I want to be able to contribute.

Saturday evening, the snake — somewhat predictably — tried to rise again, bolstered by supporters wearing “Save the Snake” T-shirts, chanting “build the snake” and toting a giant cardboard sign. One beer snake got through in the north-end zone, stretching what one witness estimated was about eight rows; but in my section, every time the cups started to stack, their growth was hastily stamped out by a small army of security guards and Winnipeg Police Service officers in bulletproof vests emblazoned with “Street Crime Unit.”

“There’s a lot of street crime here,” whispers one man near me, rolling his eyes. “Just look at all the street crime.”

No street crime, and for a time only a nascent snake. But where else should it try to slink but through Canad Inns Stadium’s Section S, that plastic-seated den of iniquity feared and decried by order-loving football fans for decades?

Hence, Free Press editors gave me a mission, and I chose to accept it: to slip unnoticed into the student-heavy, party-hearty Section S for Saturday’s home-field tilt against the Edmonton Eskimos, and observe the shenanigans. Make some Section S buddies. Get soaked in a little backwash and ponder the question: what makes this slice of the stadium such a magnet for beer-inspired antics and burly security guards?

For instance: Winnipeg police officers observed in Section S: eight.

Police officers observed in the quieter, more docile Section G across the field: one.

Is this normal? “In this section, yeah,” says a woman, my next-door seatmate. “They like our section.”

The section, though, doesn’t always like them. Minutes into the second quarter, a die-hard in a blue-painted mask leans in to a Free Press photographer. “There’s been too many people ejected from this game already,” says Elliot Borkowsky, 21.

What were they doing? “I’m not a rat,” he demurs. “I’m just saying, they were ejected for nothing.”

Quite probably, it had something to do with stacking cups. On July 16, Blue Bomber brass called a last-minute press conference to announce they had decided to ban the beer snake, an undulating mass of beer cups that was later torn down and thrown across the stands. On Saturday, security had clearly been given marching orders to seize any stack of cups greater than two; it appeared that when some fans balked at handing over the stacks, they were thrown out of the game.

During the game, one police officer approached Ian Hunt and his friends about a stack. The officer acted “aggressively,” witnesses said. “They’re trying to improve the game-day experience, but they are hampering the fan experience,” Hunt said later. “I’ve been a season-ticket holder for eight years. The beer snake was a distraction, but security is even more of a distraction.”

Also a distraction: the ejections themselves. As the seconds ticked down in the fourth quarter, with the Bombers winning by a landslide and the crowd turning to celebration, security and police rushed in to the middle of Section S to grab a man for an unknown reason. After being dragged down two rows, the man — wearing a jersey emblazoned with number 85 — clutched the bottom of the seats. Hauled to the walkway by a police officer, a lens from his sunglasses fell out and was crushed under a security boot. He was handcuffed and taken away. “What’s worse? Getting hit by a plastic cup, or getting thrown across two rows by security?” Hunt sighed, as the man was pulled out of the stadium.

Watching the ruckus, one casual section attendee shakes her head. “Look, I don’t want cups hitting me. I don’t want rowdy people spilling beer on me. But the cops and security bring out the aggression in people,” says Samantha Findlay, who has “always enjoyed” sitting in the section. “I think it’s a little over the top to have this much security and cops for a section that’s really not that bad.”

And here’s the thing: at least to this Section S first-timer, the section wasn’t that bad. Before this venture, I admit I was a little scared; all I had was the comments on our website to go on regarding the section’s antics. From commenter “Rick,” I learned that “most of these people don’t give a damn about the game. They just want to get loaded and make asses out of themselves and they don’t care about anyone around them.”

Fearing these marauding rowdies, I was a little standoffish at first. Somehow, I sensed I wasn’t welcome. “Go cover some real news!” called out one man, who, it turned out, took the biggest beef with some of the “ridiculous” comments on the beer snake stories on the Free Press website.

But 15 minutes later, I had accomplished Mission Objective A: make some Section S pals. They cheered as I snuck after security, trying to get a better view of an ejection. “Take a picture of me with the Free Press lady!” one of my new buddies shouts. “She takes notes! Look! She takes notes!”

One row down, Lars Nicholson grins. “We’re all about love in Section S,” he says, minutes before the smashed-lens guy gets dragged out by police.

Nicholson may be right. As the clock ticks down, my new Section S pals and I trade some business cards and have some laughs. We watch the game a bit. We watch the fans a lot. The crowd soars to their feet after every touchdown, razz the refs after every call that goes against the Bombers and playfully drown out neighbours attempting to chat on their cellphones.

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They also took time to stand up against beverage injustice. Besides the grumbles about tight security, Section S was also buzzing about a brand-new rule that fans could only buy one beer at a time; one woman was allowed to buy two beers from the vendor and later asked to get rid of one.

“Is this Communist Russia? Did al-Qaida win? My grandfather fought in the war, and goddamnit, I should be able to have two beers,” announces Chris Matheson, orating from his Section S seat with a wink and a grin.

Sure, it was loud. It was a party. But Section S wasn’t quite the knucklefest its detractors seem to see it as. In fact, it was a whole lot of fun: by the time the clock hit 0:00, I was feeling the love. I was pondering getting a Section S season ticket. I was…

Oh, whatever. I was wishing I’d seen a real, live beer snake. “It was amazing,” Nicholson agrees. “We made the record, then we broke it.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large

Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.