Photo Credit: Kathy Kmonicek/AP
Hockey differs from a lot of sports in that it can really get its fans riled up to the point of no return. It gives the fans a feeling of adrenaline that they often get whether their team has won or not. A majority of the time, the adrenaline will wear off and fans will do nothing more than have verbal arguments and maybe get involved in a physical scruff from time to time, but how far, is too far, exactly?
After Game 3 of the first-round of the Stanley Cup playoff series, a group of Washington Capitals fans who visited Nassau Coliseum to watch the game said they were the targets of harassment, vandalism, and homophobic and racist taunts.
Brooklyn photographer Nate Igor Smith claimed that he and a dozen other Washington fans who hail from New York City were victims to relentless heckling that went beyond normal heckling to the opposing team.
The heckling started as if it was normal heckling before the game, but it quickly took a turn for the worse as the visiting fans made their way to their seats in the arena. Smith says that several Islanders fans seated around them continuously taunted the visitors with homophobic words and targeted a black fan in his group with racial slurs.
Smith said that the heckling began as gentle ribbing before the game but it quickly took a turn for more as the visiting fans found their seats in the arena. He said several Islanders fans sitting around them hurled homophobic taunts their way and targeted a black fan in Smith’s group with racist slurs.
It doesn’t end there though, you would think by the time the game started the fans would have paid attention to their team, rather than their seatmates. When the Islanders scored their first goal, Smith said a fan dumped beer on him, and during an intermission, Smith’s group was almost involved in a physical altercation with a group of Islanders fans in an outside smoking area, where some Isles fans went as far as to blow smoke in the faces of the women in the group.
After the game, a car belonging to one of the Capitals’ fans was scratched with keys and the license plates were stolen from it.
The Islanders made it known that they don’t condone any treatment like that and that they expect Islanders fans to be the most respectful in the NHL.
Are the days of enjoying a good old hockey game with meaningless heckling gone? Or do fans of opposing teams have to worry about their safety, well-being, and belongings when it comes to going to a sporting event?
