The most vivid illustration that, to borrow a phrase from Mike Vogel, it’s hockey’s most wonderful time of the year, was on display last night in the Calgary Saddledome: a Stampede of Red, a Sea of Red-Out, the Calgary iteration of the novel fashion spirit begun more than 15 years ago in Winnipeg. Remember all those Jets’ fans and their white-out of their home arena? Why Winnipeg? My hunch: spring in Winnipeg generally starts in July, and so it wasn’t so much a concerted fashion effort on the part of Jets’ fans as their simply arriving at the rink in April and May blanketed in snow.
Whatever their origins, color-outs by the home crowd have retained their vitality through the years. They’ve avoided fading into fad or cliche. That’s because they’re only hauled out of closets in the postseason. It’s a special act reserved for a special time.
It occurs to me that they’re a novelty unique to the arena spectating experience. For one thing, it’s far easier organizing the fashion sense of 15,000 than for 75,000. But it’s also the arena fans’ proximity to the playing surface that delivers the color-outs their visual dynamism.
I’m not sure they have any appreciable impact on the games themselves. But I’m sure that doesn’t matter. They’re unifying, in perfect taste, and they’re indigenous to hockey.
But it also occurs to me that there’s a cultural component to their durability and devotion. Notice that they emerged and took a lasting legacy in two of the NHL’s smallest markets, Winnipeg and Calgary, while never gaining a chest-hold in the league’s grander markets. When the Jets moved to Phoenix, the desert citizenry commendably carried on the tradition. It’s a grassroots uprising, a passion of the Plains and the plain-speaking, the counterpoint to cosmopolita.
You know for a while the Caps and their fans copy-catted with their own postseason whiteout. When it runs again on ESPNClassic, Game 7 of the Caps’-Flyers heartstopper in ‘88, at venerable Capital Centre, carries a magnificent backdrop of the Big Pringle being awash in white. An OFB reader last week reminded us that amid the delerium of Dale Hunter’s overtime series winner the television broadcast pans in on a fist-pumping Warren Strelow seated in press row.
Can you tell yet where I’m going with this?
Since it’s a summer of change in hockey Washington, I thought I’d propose one of my own: a fresh fashion statement by Caps’ fans next season at Verizon Center, but beginning not with the postseason but rather with the first visit by the Penguins. Gracious but we need to do something dramatic to counteract all the ugliness — and here I’m not referring merely to the prevalence of visiting colors and their allegiance — clotting our rink by mullets and slugs.
We can have fun sorting out the specifics, but in general, I’d like to see Verizon Center enveloped in Red, White, and Blue. Maybe you have a half dozen rows in alternating bands of red and white, representing the bars of our flag. Maybe you have variance of the colors section by section. But you do it for Pittsburgh. Not Tampa, not Atlanta, not Carolina. Division alliances, middling as they are, be damned. Our rival today is clear. A fresh war was declared here on March 27. Management will do its part this summer to answer it. We as fans need to as well.
3 Comments
You wonder if the white-outs have any affect on the team: They are used in key games at UMaine, and every time the players make a point of thanking the fans for such a dramatic show of support. Perhaps it makes more of an impact at the smaller rinks like Alfond Arena (approx 6500 seats), but the players do notice.
What a wonderful glimpse into another rink’s experience with this. Thank you for sharing it.
All that red at that Calgary game last night was amazing…seemed like 80% of the people had jersey’s.
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