True devotion

Opinion

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This article was published 13/07/2019 (2278 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Someone once famously said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The same could easily be said for the over-the-top love some fans display for their favourite sports teams.

Just consider Jim Boychuk’s eye-popping tribute to his beloved Saskatchewan Roughriders — the superfan had the Riders’ iconic emblem painted on the iris of his prosthetic eye.

“It just popped into my head,” Boychuk, a 60-year-old season ticket holder for the Riders, told CBC of his eye-catching paint job.

When Boychuk lost an eye more than a decade ago to complications from diabetes, he replaced it with a prosthetic that resembles an egg shell, with muscles attached to an implant made of coral. Which means, as the muscles move, the prosthetic eye moves as well.

When Boychuk had the paint on the eye touched up recently, he decided to display his love for the hometown CFL squad by having the iris decorated with the classic Rider emblem, a green S surrounded by white.

“It freaks people out. That’s what I wanted to do,” he told the CBC with a laugh. “I try to have fun with it, instead of be worried about it or conscious of it. That’s just the kind of guy I am.”

Boychuk is not the only sports fanatic who only has eyes for his hometown heroes, as we see from today’s overly enthusiastic list of Five of the Sporting World’s Most Famous Superfans:

 

5) The famous fan: Nav Bhatia

The sports obsession: The Toronto Raptors

Get ready to root: He doesn’t play for Toronto’s NBA squad, but Nav Bhatia is arguably as beloved as some of the hoop stars on the roster. If you were among the millions of Canadians watching the Raptors capture Canada’s first-ever NBA championship, you will not only have seen the antics of Canadian rapper Drake, but the smiling face of Bhatia, a Sikh man who wears a turban. Bhatia has a long history with his home team: he was one of 33,306 attendees at the Raptors’ first game on Nov. 3, 1995, in the SkyDome. Back then, he told CTV, there weren’t too many brown faces in the crowd. “I was the only one with a turban at the time,” Bhatia recalled. Since that day, he hasn’t missed a single home game. He’s also never been late or left early. “I have never missed a minute of a game in 24 years,” he proudly told CTV. He’s become such a fixture courtside that it is now routine for other fans to stop and ask to have pictures taken with him. The superfan’s story is well known — he immigrated to Canada from India in 1984 and, despite being a mechanical engineer, could only land a job as a car salesman. With his famous sunny disposition, he was so good at sales he worked his way up to owning multiple dealerships. His humanity was on display during the conference finals when a Milwaukee Bucks fan made racist remarks about his turban on Twitter. Bhatia spoke with the fan, forgave him and promised to take him out for dinner. “When I came here over 30 years ago to this country, I faced insults like that. But I don’t fight insults with insults back,” Bhatia said. He’s been profiled in the New York Times and appeared in a recent Tim Hortons commercial. The Raptors uber-booster created the Nav Bhatia Superfan Foundation to “unite people of all ages and backgrounds through the game of basketball.” The foundation aims to build basketball courts and camps for children worldwide.

 

4) The famous fan: The Barrel Man

The sports obsession: The Denver Broncos

Get ready to root: Tim McKernan became a legend for attending Denver Broncos home games wearing a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a bright-orange barrel held up by suspenders, and pretty much nothing else. On a cold day, he might toss on a pair of gloves, but that was it. The legendary Broncos superfan’s unique attire — which he wore to every home game for 30 years — earned him the nickname “Barrel Man.” According to the Denver Post, the former mechanic for United Airlines started wearing a barrel in 1977 after making a US$10 bet with his brother, Scott, that by wearing one during a Broncos game, he could get on television. McKernan won the bet and the barrel he had painted to look like an Orange Crush pop can became his signature costume, making him one of the most recognizable fans in the history of the National Football League. McKernan’s son, Todd, told the Post his father’s first barrel was one that had been emptied of cleaning solvent, and over the years, he had acquired 21 different barrels, including one that was sold on eBay in 2006 for US$30,000. “Outside the barrel, my father was very quiet, an introverted, calm person,” Todd McKernan said. “But when he put it on, he talked differently. He swaggered and was transformed. It allowed him to express himself… He liked the attention. He loved inspiring the fans and had a take-charge attitude.” The elder McKernan was the first Broncos fan to be inducted into the Visa Hall of Fans, which recognizes costume-wearing, face-painted, avid NFL fans, in a ceremony held at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 2007, Tim McKernan retired his barrel and was honoured by the Broncos during a halftime show where he was presented with a team football and other gifts and received lots of fan appreciation that moved him to tears. Two years later, Barrel Man died peacefully in his sleep of lung failure at age 69. When the Broncos headed off to Super Bowl 50 in 2016, Tim’s son, Todd, slipped on the famed barrel to root them on and pay tribute to his dad. “I’ve been going to games with my dad since 1967 and I miss him terribly and it’s like being with him again,” Todd gushed.

 

3) The famous fan: John Anthony Portsmouth Football Club Westwood

The sports obsession: Portsmouth Football Club, a third-tier English soccer team

Get ready to root: What’s in a name? Well, in this English football superfan’s case, everything! In 1989, John Anthony Westwood, a mild-mannered antiquarian book dealer in a peaceful national park market town, legally changed his name to (take a deep breath) John Anthony Portsmouth Football Club Westwood. He is also known as “Pompey John,” because his beloved football club is nicknamed Pompey. What we are talking about here is arguably the most well-known English football fan in the world. Consider the facts — Westwood has 60 Portsmouth tattoos on his body, the club’s crest shaved onto his head and “PFC” engraved on his teeth. On game days, instead of browsing priceless first editions, he dons his bright blue wig, stovepipe hat and ex-chef’s chequered trousers, bares his tattooed torso and loudly rings his handbell or blows on his bugle as he braves the elements to support the love of his life. His obsession with the south coast club began when he was 13 and his father, Frank, took him to his first game: Portsmouth versus Brighton, which Pompey won 1-0. “It was a 32,000 crowd and the place was just rocking. Unbelievable,” the superfan told Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper in 2010. “I thought there and then that I was going to be a Pompey fan until the day I died. It has become my passion, my life. It’s Jekyll and Hyde, if you like. I leave the books behind me when I step out of the shop. No more minding my p’s and q’s and having to be polite to customers and the customer always being right. At the weekends, I just become myself.” There have been more than a few pitfalls along the way, as his marriage to wife, Linda, collapsed over his obsession with Portsmouth. “I have only been married once and that was enough. Linda thought I would change, but if you marry me, you marry Portsmouth. It’s sad really, but you only get one life,” he recalled. Then there’s the fact that the mixture of beer and adrenalin have seen him ejected from some grounds and banned from others. “I have been ejected from a few grounds… because I stand out from the crowd and I make a bit of noise,” he said. “Football is a bit politically correct these days and they don’t like people who show passion.”

 

2) The famous fan: Syd (100% Cheese-Free) Davy

The sports obsession: The Minnesota Vikings

Get ready to root: Superfans don’t get much more super than Syd Davy. By day, he’s a mild-mannered, though heavily muscled, locomotive engineer from Winnipeg. On the weekends, at Vikings home games, he is transformed into his alter ego, a Vikings superfan known as “100% Cheese-Free,” a less-than-subtle shot at his enemies, Green Bay Packers fans who are famed for wearing cheesehead hats to games. For decades, he’s travelled thousands of kilometres to get to and from Vikings games, an expense he says is worth every cent. “We missed seven games in 29 years,” he recently said on CBC Radio’s The Current. “I budget $16,000 a year to go to games for me and my wife, and we seldom ever come close to staying within our budget… But if it’s something that you love that much, you find a way to do it.” He began his love affair with the Vikings in 1967, when Bud Grant left the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to become Minnesota’s coach. He bought his first season tickets in 1986. In 2006, USA Today rated the Winnipegger as the NFL’s most fanatical fan. In his 2018 book, Superfans: Into the Heart of Obsessive Sports Fandom, writer George Dohrmann described Davy’s fame: “In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Randy Moss, Minnesota’s star wide receiver, would jump into the crowd after touchdowns, and Davy would catch him. Davy became so visible he couldn’t walk down the streets of Minneapolis without being recognized, and he became so synonymous with the team that his picture has appeared on game tickets. On this day, Davy is wearing his full ensemble. His eyebrows and handlebar moustache have been dyed bright yellow, the Vikings’ secondary colour. Two long braids (also yellow) emerge from underneath his horned Viking helmet (which is painted gold) and run down his face (which is painted purple), over some chain mail (like ancient knights wore during battle) and a sleeveless purple Vikings T-shirt. The braids stop just short of a giant gold championship belt (like the ones professional wrestlers wear) that wraps Davy’s waist.” His Viking get-up was born on Halloween 1993 for a game against the Detroit Lions and has since attained cult status. “You know how people go to the cottage for the weekend? I go to Vikings games for the weekend,” he has been quoted as saying.

 

1) The famous fan: Gabriel (Dancing Gabe) Langlois

The sports obsession: Every Winnipeg team

Get ready to root: For more than 30 years, the man every Winnipegger has come to know as “Dancing Gabe” has been rocking, rolling and rooting on Winnipeg’s pro sports teams and driving fans wild with his sweet moves and unrelenting optimism. If you’ve ever been to a game featuring the Winnipeg Jets, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Winnipeg Goldeyes and now Valour FC, you’ve seen Gabriel Langlois shimmying and shaking and high-fiving in support of the home team, cheered on by adoring crowds that have come to love the city’s No. 1 superfan. In 2016, he was honoured by the Goldeyes, who doled out Dancing Gabe bobblehead souvenirs to the first 1,000 visitors to come through the turnstiles at Shaw Park. He was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, but that has never slowed down his passion for Winnipeg’s sports teams. A book about his uplifting life, Dancing Gabe: One Step at a Time, hit bookstore shelves in 2015. Author Daniel Perron has said that along with being an avid fan, Gabe is a talented athlete. “He has run, for example, 29 marathons — four full marathons and 25 half-marathons. He also bowls twice a week and never misses,” the writer noted. The uber-fan is easily one of Winnipeg’s best-known citizens. “Aside from the odd player on the opposition bench and a few on the home side, Gabe Langlois is the best-known person at every Winnipeg Jets home game,” former Free Press reporter Geoff Kirbyson wrote in a 2015 article published in The Hockey News. “Whether it’s the Jets, the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers, baseball’s Winnipeg Goldeyes or high school sporting events around town, Langlois is there, showing off a soft sneaker whenever the music plays. You want popularity? Cults would kill to have the following he has…” In 2010, Gabe won the Dancing with Celebrities fundraiser in support of the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities, wiping the floor with this particular columnist. So you just know he has to be good. Sorry, make that super.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca