During the hockey game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night, the Flyers ran the above commercial, titled “Hockey Fights Cancer,” on their Jumbotron. The video features hockey players imploring fans to help them raise money and awareness in the fight against cancer. When the video ran, a number of Flyers fans booed upon seeing rival hockey players displayed in their arena, and almost immediately people starting falling all over themselves to talk about Philly fans “booing an anti-cancer ad.” Puck Daddy has a nice collection of tweets on the subject (as part of a very reasonable take on the situation), and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to see a number of people going to tired cliches, including, of course, the time Philly fans booed Santa Claus (pictured, at right).
As Uproxx’s resident Philadelphian, this crap drives me bonkers. First of all, you idiots, they were booing their hated rivals, not cancer prevention. I know it fits your narrative to shoehorn everything into the “Haha Philly fans are jerks” angle, but come on. If this happened in Buffalo or San Jose, it’s not a story. And the Santa thing. GOOD LORD, the Santa thing. Do you know when Philly fans booed Santa? 1968. Timely reference. It’s not like they just showed up at a shopping mall and started pelting the guy with ice, either. There was a backstory that actually made it somewhat understandable in context. But every time something like this happens, people trot out these lazy cliches and demonize me and my brethren for the actions of one rogue goon, or things that happened 10-20 years before most of us were born.
The whole thing makes me so angry I could wing batteries at their stupid heads.
