March 27, 2012

Chants

Fans loves chanting. Whether it be at a professional or collegiate or high school event, fans will chant. It may be an original creation or a old favorite that's both reliable & easy to remember. If you've been to a game, odds are you've participated in a chant. The leading scientists at the University of North Dakota say that some 67% of fans enjoy chanting at the game more than watching it. That's bullshit, but you get the point. Right? Do I need to make up another statistic? Maybe a nice chart depicting the good & bad ones will suffice . . .

Good Chants
"Naw Naw Naw Naw Hey Hey Hey Goodbye" - A classic. Nothing ushers a team out of the playoffs like this Kristina Debarge hit.
"Let's Go (insert team)" - Quick, easy, repetitive, somewhat uninspired, but a solid rallying cry.
"Ole Ole Ole Ole" - I know I ripped soccer in a earlier post, but I'll give them soccer fans their credit & say nothing gives me bigger goosebumps than hearing thousands of people sing this. It's awesome.
"(blank) sucks! (blank) sucks!" - The perfect way to irk a player or team that you passionately hate. Ask Kurt Angle about this one.
"J! E! T! S! Jets! Jets! Jets!" or "P! I! T! T! Let's Go PITT!" - Very clever fans who thought to give each letter its moment. This only works with four letter teams though.

Bad Chants
Anything involving the refs - Odds are the refs made a good call & the home crowd is uneducated about the game. The ones I'm sick of hearing are "get off your knees ref, you're blowing the game" & the infamous "what are you blind?".
"USA! USA! USA" - I love the United States of America, but hate when we chant our country in a non-international format. I went to a WWE event where the crowd heckled the Canadian bad guy with this chant. The good guy was also Canadian. I even heard this at a Pens game when they played the Toronto Maple Leafs. Guess where Sidney Crosby & Marc-Andre Fleury are from.
The Wave - Technically not a chant but my disdain of it forces me to place it on this list. Its stupid. Plain & simple. And the 'ooooo' that accompanies it around the arena makes my mind bleed. The worst part is, there's always a group of fans whose solo purpose of coming to the game was to start this thing. They wait out the game for a lull in the action & try to get it going. A major distraction.

What do yins think? Have any additions?

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