Going to a Flyers game is pretty close to a study in sociology. The many types of fans and the different lifestyles represented are numerous.
There's the self-proclaimed "Super Fan" with his black and orange mohawk and Flyers logo tattooed on both sides of his head. Present at every fame he has been observed delivering pizza on off nights. Tips must be good. There's the bevy of beauties sporting the same hairstyle they wore when Poison released their first album. The battle between tiny women carrying HUGE handbags and large women wearing the tiniest backpacks occurs nightly. There's the older couple with season tickets who climb to the top of the Wach for every home game. The guy who's wearing the same Hextall jersey he got back in 1988 and it shows. The drunken college students who stand in the top row of the bowl with their chest painted. The folks who wear every item of orange clothing they own to the game. Seeing all these sometimes freakish people makes me wonder if I fit in with this crowd.
Somehow I think the answer is yes. Of course, I live in South Jersey, not South Philly. I wasn't a fan back in the Broad Street Bullies days, or even the Legion of Doom days. I drive a minivan and not a 1988 Chevy Caprice. I can't parallel park to save my life. I don't need to save my parking spot that I shoveled the snow out of with a folding chair. But deep down I'm one of them. Those lovely, interesting freaks bleed black and orange. They're Flyers fans.
And so am I.
1 comment:
See, here in DC we have a subset of those sorts of "freaks" as well...(conveniently, our blood runs Red)... but here we also have the "freaks" of sports fans in the form of all the young politicos that come directly from Capital Hill and the surrounding buildings all decked in their coats and ties. They are fewer and fewer these days and we are beginning to forbid them entry to the Phone Booth if they don't ditch the tie and don the Red. Winning seasons and sold out stadiums has some added benefits after all!
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