The Battle of Alberta is won! Brief summary: In the initial phase of the game we offered the Flames an early Christmas present which they happily accepted. Fortunately we equalised 30 seconds before the end of the first period. The second one was quite boring and actually the whole game - as far as I can judge it - was more a fight than a technically good game. The happy end followed about 8 minutes before the end of the third period: Sykora (from the Czech Republic) scored his second goal of the night, like the first one after assist from Hemsky (who's Czech too so it's a pity that Premek missed that triumph) to set the 2:1 final score.

Remember I was even more looking forward to the Flames game and its atmosphere after I watched that pre-season game? I made a good choice picking Calgary and it was definitely worth the money. Yet, it was still a bit different than expected. So here are some of my observations and thoughts about fan culture. Actually I think it would be quite a good topic for a sport interested ethnologist to compare European and North American fan culture and behaviour - but the differences are so obvious that I guess a lot has been done on it already. Going to Rexall Place is a bit like going to the Innsbrucker Tivoli without a Nordtribüne. Meaning the whole stadium is seated, no standing area and usually it's the latter where the hard core supporters are gathering, where the real action is going on. The clapping, the shouting, the singing, the chanting. I mean, at the beginning of the hockey game they even announced that people should remain seated all the time and not stand up in order not to block the view for others. In a soccer match: if the people in front of you stand up, well than you have to stand up as well, so what?

Matthias remarked that going to a hockey game is a bit like going to the opera. Eric agreed and argued that tickets are so expensive that it's the opera kind of people who go to games. But I disagree. Sure it's 50 bucks, but as far as I know the English Premier League is ridiculously expensive as well - yet, that experience (which I unfortunately haven't got yet) would be quite a different one.

It's just something missing here. People are generally quiet. They are sitting, watching. (Florian, you would love it! :-) Cheering only at goals or remarkable situations. Chants? Nothing creative. The best they come up with is "Leeets gooo Oooilers" and "Go Flames go" on the other side. And even for that they have support: I guess it's too small to see it properly on that picture but the red board at the top of the scoring board (which already shows 2:1 for the Oilers) reads "I can't hear you" while the big screen and the blue boards left to it demand "Louder!". Well, then people do clap and chant and whistle for some seconds, and then it's done. Nothing permanent. Mission accomplished and back to the usual. Mocking and insulting the opponent is virtually missing. Even in such an intense rivalry as Edmonton and Calgary, which I found quite surprising. Once or twice there were "Calgary sucks" chants but that was it. Compare that to any Austrian (and I guess any European) soccer stadium where the opposing team, city and individual players are constantly subject to mockery and insult. "Salzburger - Arschloecher" and the like, just to mention a harmless example - which, I think, still wouldn't be considered appropriate here.

So what makes the difference? Well, I don't know precisely about the cultural difference. What in my opinion is definitely an important factor is the ticket and seating policy. In Europe we have clear sides, a clear separation: The home team has the stadium and the guests their own sector within it. In Canada it's one stadium watching two teams. There are no sectors assigned to supporters of one or the other team. You buy a seat and don't know who's sitting next to you. Before and left to me were for example 10, 15 passionate (and drunk) Calgary supporters apart from some Oilers supporters in between. And that makes the difference. It's basically a stadium full of individual people. Would you chant on your on, knowing that the person before you, left to you, are opponents? Would you chant if nobody else is joining? In Europe you are in the mass, you get carried away by the mass, you are the mass. Which I guess is also the reason for more hooliganism. The lines are clearly defined. We are we and we have our territory - and opposite, far away on the other side, there is the enemy, not an individual but an impersonal block. Here you sit next to each other, everything is mixed, you meet the supporters of the opponent team personally, you possibly talk to them.

Yet I'm actually quite surprised that this system here works. I mean in Europe supporters of one team - usually home team - are leaving right after the match and the ones of other - usually guest team - have to wait for 15 minutes or so. So supporters are separated again, they don't meet immediately after the final whistle when emotions are highest. Here in comparison at the end of the game everybody is leaving just as everybody is sitting next to each other during the game. Imagine, people are frustrated because their team has just lost and then people from the other team are celebrating and maybe some stupid guys are mocking them. Actually exactly this happened yesterday. Just when we were leaving people started fighting three rows in front of us. The typical thing. People drink, then they provoke and then they fight. And they really started to fight. Violent boxing, two or three other people joined, one fell on the seats - which looked quite terrible - and had a bloody face. Others were about to join but finally the security arrived, it took them surprisingly long - or maybe it just felt long because it was that close and a bit scary. They got four guys but I'm not sure whether they didn't catch two who actually were not involved at all. So given how easy it is to start a fight I'm really surprised that there were not more situations like this.

In total I'd say that as with all things the coin of fan attitude has two sides. On the one hand you'll have much more atmosphere in Europe, on the other hand you very likely have more violence as well (or at least you have to do more to prevent it).