Is Loud And Proud going the wrong way?

[yetirider]

I've always had a believe that the tigers fans were the best in the league.

Lets have a little review of where we currently are, last week the chairman posted this on the facebook page.

Alan Gould
Just had the displeasure of reading through the posts from tonights game and once again, the arguments and personal insults appear.


So off we go to Manchester, where they take the opportunity to allow a young netminder to get some ice time, i'd guess that was a special occasion for him.

He was greeted by a mixture of.
You only play when your winning.
Two shots one goals, two shots one goal,
Tea bag, tea bag.

So we have a set of fans loud and proud that support their team and we have always had great support from the opposing teams fans. So where are we now and what are those fans saying ?

Here's two post from the Manchester site.

"Re: Phoenix v Tigers, Sat 11/2/12, 1900Hrs @ The Dome
by lizziethorpe » 12 Feb 2012 10:53 am

Right up to their goal I would agree about the telford fans it was nice to see them still behind their team but I personally didn't like the chanting aimed at a young netminder seemed a bit below the belt. At the end of the day he played over 1/6 of the match last night and only let in 1 goal. Mind you he shut them up himself by making a couple of good saves so maybe no halm came from in. I just personally lost a lot of respect for those Telford fans that where chanting last night."

by lizziethorpe » 12 Feb 2012 01:02 pm

It was only the usual netminder chants, personally it just felt wrong aimed at a young reserve.

At the end of the day its up to the fans what they want to sing, i'd just thought i'd highlight this to enable people to have a think about how the support is being viewed, and what that may do to the goodwill we currently enjoy from the other teams?

[shrek]

Good post.

While I am all for shouting our support for our team, I'm not impressed when we go to Peterborough (who have some great fans) to see how our netminders are treated.

I would hope that our fans are better than this.

I was also not at all happy at the way that some people treated a young fan who gave up his Sunday night to update the facebook scoreboard thread. I felt that people were unfairly taking out their frustrations at the scoreline on the person doing the updates.

[backinthegame]

To be honest we always used to give starting netminders the 'tea bag' shout in the 80's and 90's
it helped to get under their skin and helped the boys on the ice ... iirc we did it all the time to a certain nettie from Romford

[hotlips]

I for one can remeber shouting tea bag and 1 shot 1 goal to Stephen Doyle of the Barons many moons ago, the sport has change a lot from way back when you could check hard with out the worry of having a 5 min or being chucked out of the game. The banter has been lost within the game, whether it's right or wrong to call a net minder tea bag regardless of age is always gonna be a touchy subject and a personal thing too. I don't see any harm, but I am from the old skool hockey family.

[tallpaul]

I'm a bit late coming to this thread but it still seems pertinent.

IMO if a player can't take a bit of stick from opposition fans then they shouldn't be playing, and certainly not in front of a paying audience. I really can't believe that EPL level hockey players will allow themselves to be bothered by that sort of banter. Andre Payette says that it motivates him to perform better and that seems like a more mature attitude.