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April 16. That’s the day I originally pitched this article to the esteemed editors of this site. You may be confused as to why I pitched an article two months ago but only got around to writing it now. On April 16, the Washington Capitals — my favorite team and the team whose fortunes I cared about more than anything for the past 20 years — fell into a 0-2 series hole in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs; last night they won their first ever championship.
I’m not ashamed to admit that when I first pitched this idea, I was done. Angry. Defeated. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the NHL knows that the Capitals are the kings of the cocktease. Great teams, with great stars and great talent, who flame out and fail spectacularly when it matters. Their record when leading in playoff series, when they have the chance to close out and win a series, and in elimination games, is laughable. And after watching their first two playoff games this year seem to follow that same old script of heartbreak, I was done.
It must be so much easier, more pleasurable to just not care that much about sports. To watch only when it’s convenient, barely paying attention, wanting your team to win, but not really caring if they lose.
That’s what I desperately wanted. I envied those fans who cruised through life without that passion and could just enjoy the ride no matter the end. To not be hung up, invested in the fortunes of a team I was certain would crush my heart and soul as they had on every occasion in the past.
Until they won.
Now, you might think that the championship has changed my perspective. But instead, as I watched the celebrations with my girlfriend, who knew nothing about hockey before we started dating and could easily be labeled as bandwagon as they come, my view strengthened. Watching her get all excited at their victory with me, and getting excited at my excitement (the video she captured of me ugly crying tears of joy will likely be used for blackmail forever) was just as genuine as all the other fans celebrating the win. She is a fan, even though she barely knows anything about the team before this year. Yet this was a text she sent me from a wedding during Game 3 of the final when we were separated by two states.
See, giant sports fans always want to get into a dick measuring contest when it comes to fandom. There are all these notions about what “real fans” are. Someone who doesn’t know your team’s history, not a real fan. Someone who leaves before the end of the game when you’re losing, not a real fan. Someone who doesn’t agree with you that the team’s GM/coach/star player should be launched into an active volcano, not a real fan. If they boo or don’t boo the team getting blown out at home, if they do or don’t go to every game during the years when they’re basement dwellers, if they do or don’t eat, sleep, and breathe this team. All of this how we attempt to define the fandom of others, and make ourselves feel superior in our fandom. It’s all bullshit.
I’ll admit, I fell into the trap in a certain way. I was rooting against Vegas throughout these playoffs largely because their “lifelong fans” (I tease, but I know there are a lot of people like Dillon who were fans of this team back when they were going to be the Vegas Aces) hadn’t “earned” a championship. To be in existence one year, breeze through the playoffs, and win a championship on your first try feels wrong. To accomplish something that the Sabres, Canucks, Browns, Chargers, Cardinals, Magic, Rangers, Indians, and Mariners have never done in centuries of combined futility just feels wrong. But it isn’t, and the Vegas fans should feel damn proud for their accomplishments. They’re no less fans than die-hard Toronto Maple Leafs fans who have suffered for almost half a century.
In fact, being a diehard fan is, objectively, not as emotionally healthy as being a bandwagon fan. Diehard fans lose years off their lives dealing with the turmoil and stress of their team’s performance, while bandwagon fans can largely live their lives in peace. They enjoy the game and enjoy their team’s success, but it doesn’t define them. And when their favorite team starts it’s inevitable period of being the league laughingstock, they don’t feel compelled to be a “real fan” and take the barbs and jabs from other fans. They can just let that fandom lay dormant, to be resurrected when they are given something to root for again.
To me, the only unacceptable practice in sports fandom is frontrunning: dropping your team’s fandom and switching to the team that’s having all the success. Think all those fans in the 70s who “became” Steelers fans or fans of the Cowboys in the 80s. It’s fine if you were actually fans of those teams and then they started winning, but if you’re choosing a team purely based on whether they’re winning or not that’s unacceptable. And dropping your rooting interests to back a winner is a bush league move.
But it’s fine to not be devoted to a team 100% of the time. It’s even okay to shift your rooting interests to your partner’s team in instances where it doesn’t conflict with your own. Jennie loves tennis, and even though I have a few players I like I’ll generally join in her rooting interests whenever she wants to watch because it doesn’t matter that much to me. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Nowhere in the book of fandom does it say you must be 100% devoted to your team 100% of the time.
So I speak to you now, fans of perpetual losers like the Browns, Bengals, Tampa Rays, Florida Panthers, Sabres, and Charlotte Hornets. To you fans of perpetual chokers like the Texas Rangers, Blues, and Michigan football. To you fans of once-proud franchises that are now constant disappointments like the Islanders, Bulls, Cowboys, Orioles, and Texas football. It’s okay to let go. It’s fine, it’s healthy. No one should mock you for putting your own happiness above that of a team that doesn’t care about you. And if you jump back on board once they’re back to respectability, that’s fine too. You’re not more of a fan for enduring all those emotional scars, and you won’t enjoy the win any less than the “real fans.”
Be loyal to your team, be kind and accepting of all fans no matter when they came into the dysfunctional family that is the fanbase of every team, and remember that the refs are always biased against your team. Those are the only things you ever need to remember to be a true fan. And if someone calls you “bandwagon” because you didn’t watch every single regular season and preseason game this year, because you don’t wear a jersey to the championship watch party, or because you didn’t have the heart to watch your team go 0-16, tell them to shove it. You’re just as much a fan as they are.
From someone who fell off the fandom and jumped back on the bandwagon after the demons were exercised, the championship champagne still tastes just as sweet. .
Respond
@joshetyler
@joshetyler
*An Introvert’s Justification of His Bandwagon Girlfriend in an Effort to Make up for the Birthday Gift Debacle
Yes, it is, but know your place. Don’t come up to me and talk to me about the team (past, present, or future) and don’t even think about talking to me about “after all those years I can’t believe we finally won”. Just keep your mouth shut, support the team by buying a jersey and game tickets, and be quiet. Source: lifelong Astros fan that’s going to kill the next bandwagon fan that acts like they know what they’re talking about when you couldn’t even pay them to talk about the Stros a few years ago
I’m a Cardinals fan, but living in Houston for 8 years I’ve definitely become an Astros fan because that’s how I can get some baseball (missing the NL Central matchups). My following for the Stros has definitely increased the last 3 years, but I was also there during the “2 tickets for $2 with a Powerade label” days.
Haha this has quickly become to rallying call of long term Stros fans. Loved the Powerade tickets and just casually walk to the third base line cause the place was empty
On top of that, you aren’t a real Stros fan if it isn’t a subconscious reflex to say “Fuck the Braves” any time they come up in conversation depite not ever playing then anymore
Miss the ole Birds vs Stros games. I do like that we decided to pick up all the old Killer B’s though.
Has Pujols’ home run off Lidge landed yet?
Those days of JR Towles, Kaz Matsui, and Carlos Lee on 100 mil a year really make you appreciate this group so much more.
Just had a guy that I know switch from being a “lifelong Yankee fan” to an “Astros fan”… I am livid.
Alabama bandwagon fans are the worst case of this matter. People who attended the university are great folks. It’s the obnoxiois non Bama fans that are flat out annoying.
Non Bama grads*
So the state of Alabama?
You’re missing the point UW.
I think his point is UA fans are so dumb they can’t get accepted into their own college. I’m not sure what their in-state to out-of-state student ratio is but I’d bet it’s around 25%.
As a lifelong die-hard Pens fan I was prepares to come on here and skewer you, but I found myself agreeing with you. It’s fine to not watch every game, especially if the ownership is tanking. But don’t go years without following the team.
Congrats on the Cup.
Also a Pens fan. Of course I was salty when we were eliminated but I have said repeatedly the Caps deserve a cup.
I’m a die hard Pens fans (but also a die hard Steelers and Pirates). I live in DC and I hate the Capitals. I would’ve gone down to downtown last night and enjoyed it if it wasn’t the Capitals.
I’m ready to start the 2018-2019 season tonight if possible.
But… but… It wouldn’t have been downtown if it wasn’t the Capitals…
how do you live with all that hate in your heart man
I’ve sat through a shit ton of heartbreak over the years and it makes love my teams twice as hard
Haha I live in DC too and used the same justification to stay away from Chinatown last night. I’m glad that the win made so many of my friends happy but I want to move on immediately.
Are you Pens fans aware that Crosby is the most overrated player that’s not Lebron James?
stick to golf bro
why doesn’t this have more upvotes?
I’ll use the Cubs as an example. Im a die hard Cubs fan, and it was fun having people connected to Chicago who weren’t big fans before along for the ride. It probably didn’t mean as much to them, but it still made them genuinely excited which is great. Some even continued following through this year which is even better. Being fairweather is fine as long as you don’t try to pass yourself off as something more
Yup. I’m not a Cubs fan at all because I didn’t grow up here, but you would have to not have a soul to not get infected with the fever as the Cubs brought it down the home stretch. If you live in a market where the hometown is on a title run I think it’s cool to jump on the ‘wagon, in fact it’s only natural unless your team is a rival.
Unless you are like my friend who ditched the Indians for cubs during that season. Benedict arnold.
He should be forced to become a Mets fan as punishment
My mom is a Cardinal fan and I was taught to hate the Cubs growing up. I live in Chicago now and man I gotta say it’s hard not to get a little caught up in all the love this city has for the Cubs
Transplants should be given a free pass, as long as they’re not trying to appear like they’ve been in it for the long haul.
It can be really hard not to fanhood virtue signal when you’ve been a day 1 OG. At the end of the day, though, the bandwagoners that know you will probably recognize that it means more to you than it does them.
I want to hate the capitals because that 4 game streak to knock out my jackets was just embarrassing, but you guys deserve the cup. Congrats!
Seeing the pure emotion come from Ovechkin (and Backstrom) made me temporarily not hate the caps.
That’s why the NBA is currently a joke. That championship doesn’t come anywhere close to being as hearty as seeing Ovi raise the Cup. I don’t really know how Durant can celebrate a championship given the way he did it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to win that way. If you can’t beat em, join em I guess but it surely devalues the title in my opinion.
As a lifelong St. Louis Blues fan, I appreciate you not naming them on the list of teams who have’t won the big one.
Check again Rando.
The only times it’s okay to be a bandwagon fan is if you have a relation to someone that’s already a diehard fan of said team. Like you mentioned with you/your girlfriend or if your family is from Pittsburgh and are diehard Steelers fans, etc.
Otherwise, as someone that’s been a fan of the the Warriors since I was barely old enough to go home from school by myself, fuck off.
I grew up in California and didn’t know that team existed until 2012. I’m peeved by all the LA people who rooted for the Lakers when Kobe was good, the Clippers when Blake blew up, and now are sporting Durant Warriors jerseys with the tags still on.
LA sports fans are the worst, they’re the biggest bunch of bandwagon fans that I’ve ever seen.
When I was at UCLA, during the dark days of the Neuheisel era (although not much has changed since, unfortunately), USC was just getting off their insane pay-for-play era under Cheatin’ Pete. We had a saying: “I wear my UCLA jersey because I went to UCLA. You wear your USC jersey because you went to Walmart.”
There’s a Walmart in LA?
Oh yeah, tons, with many (unexpectedly) around East LA and South Central.
Walmart is also responsible for all of the bandwagon Alabama “fans”
Can’t blame them too much out there. There’s no professional sports teams in Alabama and what else is there to do besides one’s cousin?
As a true LA fan this is very valid. Laker fans are annoying even though I am one and Kobe Bryant is unmercifully defended despite questionable character at times lol. That being said, the Warriors slapped Oakland in the face leaving lol.
I’ve struggled with this moving to Nashville. Growing up in ATL, I was never into the Thrashers (RIP), and obviously the Predators are pretty good. But I just can’t bring myself to get into them like my peers have – I don’t (yet) have stories to tell about why the Predators mean so much to me other than seeing my new city abuzz, the same way that I do for skipping school to go to Braves game when I was little with my dad, or going to UGA for 4 years and crying like a baby during the Rose Bowl this year when we finally had a chance at something. It just feels wrong to cheer for the Preds, but I don’t disagree with your take here. It sounds like you have stories to tell about your time in DC and growing into fandom of the Caps with your GF, and that should be enough. The key though, whether you have those stories to tell or not, is to not be a douche about it to other people once your team finally wins, no matter how long you’ve rooted for them.
As an Okie transplant living in SEC country, that Rose Bowl will haunt me to my dying day. *Chugs bourbon*