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Hey, I call it like I see it. A true fan stands behind his/her team. A true fan discusses what is going on with the team and supports the management. A true fan doesn't throw the players on their team under a bus. A true fan doesn't bad mouth the management or players when they make a mistake. IMHO, we have a lot of fickle fairweather fans on this forum. We need more supportive fans instead of fans that are all "Debbie Downers" and looking to insult the team, players, or management. Thats my stance.

i agree to an extent. the point of a forum is constructive discussion and debate. and all teams do have bad fans on both ends of the spectrum.

to me, the biggest problem you see on the message board is that due to the variety of opinions, it appears as if the fans are way more negative than they are. for example, my pet peeve might be ericsson. so i might complain about him regularly. your pet peeve might be bertuzzi. another person might have a problem with hudler. and once you add up all the different folks complaints, half the team is on the list! so even if a player has 95% popularity, there will still be a fair amount of people out there complaining. so since the forum is a repository for all complaints, it can look worse than it is.

to me though, and the reason i made my initial comment, it too many people come off all pious telling others how to be a fan. there seems to be the same set of posters that come into any thread that has a negative comment saying that the red wings never make a mistake and holland is perfect and that the wings wouldnt have all these cups and all these playoff appearences if they were wrong. and to me its just gross hyperbole. obviously the wings are a great organization because they have good overall decision making. they have great scouting. great player relations. etc... but that doesn't mean that drafting yuri butsayev was the best decision in 97. they have done things wrong. thankfully they were often minor and insignificant. but it is ok to question moves.

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All the really successful sports teams have the most neurotic fans.

Fans have the right to think what they want. They don't "owe" the team anything really. The team provides fans with entertainment, while fans provide teams and owners with actual revenue, which goes into player salaries.

LGW is actually more fun with neurotic threads. Go to a Panthers or Thrashers board, and see how many people give a damn there. Not many, hence not as interesting a discussion board.

This. The more silliness, the better. The silly threads are easy to spot and easily avoided if one is so inclined. :)

Edited by Broken 16

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i agree to an extent. the point of a forum is constructive discussion and debate. and all teams do have bad fans on both ends of the spectrum.

to me, the biggest problem you see on the message board is that due to the variety of opinions, it appears as if the fans are way more negative than they are. for example, my pet peeve might be ericsson. so i might complain about him regularly. your pet peeve might be bertuzzi. another person might have a problem with hudler. and once you add up all the different folks complaints, half the team is on the list! so even if a player has 95% popularity, there will still be a fair amount of people out there complaining. so since the forum is a repository for all complaints, it can look worse than it is.

to me though, and the reason i made my initial comment, it too many people come off all pious telling others how to be a fan. there seems to be the same set of posters that come into any thread that has a negative comment saying that the red wings never make a mistake and holland is perfect and that the wings wouldnt have all these cups and all these playoff appearences if they were wrong. and to me its just gross hyperbole. obviously the wings are a great organization because they have good overall decision making. they have great scouting. great player relations. etc... but that doesn't mean that drafting yuri butsayev was the best decision in 97. they have done things wrong. thankfully they were often minor and insignificant. but it is ok to question moves.

IMHO, there is a big difference between questioning a move and saying Holland is an idiot. There is a big difference between being peeved off that Lidstrom made a bad pass that gave up a goal and calling him old and he should retire because he has lost it. Its the difference between being discussing what happened in the course of a game, and bashing a player and an organization.

I am not above saying that the Wings management doesn't make errors. Same with the players. That being said, its always easy to look at moves in hindsight and belittle an organization years later. Its also easy to say a move should have been made instead of waiting to see the results of the seeds that you plant today. I guess the thing to realize here is that fans are not patient (except if you live in Minnesota and cheer for the Wild). :D

I do have to agree with you that the negative comments are quite frequent in here, and that sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming. I am a very positive person, and these forums really don't do much when it comes to keeping things on the positive. For an organization as great as the Red Wings, it surprises me just how many Debbie Downers there are on this forum. It really makes me wonder how so many "Red Wing Fans" can be against the team, players, management, and ownership. It really does remind me of these steps in the process.....

1. Team plays well

2. The bandwagon fans roll in expecting perfection

3. Fans and Bandwagon Fans enjoy the team, and find a middle ground.

4. Team falls on hard times

5. Bandwagoners roll out leaving the true fans to enjoy the team.

6. Go to step 1

We have been in step 3 for the last 17 years.

Ah well, I guess the bottom line for me is that it grates my gears to see so many fans against so many of the players, management, and ownership. I will try to temper my expectations and be a little more forgiving. Its just hard for me to do.

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Guest Hatethedrake!

We need the Wings to play exactly like Babs wants them to. Outwork their opponent and come after them wave after wave. When the Wings are ON it's great to watch. There will be some nights where they just don't have it. That I can live with. But not each game, being outworked by the other team. 3-1-1 is not bad for a team which has basically half assed it so far. Hopefully they can sweep this 4 game homestand and get some momentum going.

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It's a what have you done for me lately business, no matter if it's just the 2nd game of the season or the 200th, fair or unfair. And fans in general, while a game is being played or immediately before or after it, rarely think big picture I think - whether it is understanding that your team is rebuilding and probably won't make the post sesason, whether your team is consistently good and shouldn't have trouble making the postseason, whether the season is young and there is a long time to fix any consistent mistakes, whatever.

I think you can call a spade a spade whenever you want to whether it's just 1 game into a season or 50, and nobody is off limits to criticism, but it helps to not be closed-minded IMO and just focus on the current game itself whether a team or somebody stinks up the joint and think that is how the rest of the season will go for that team or player. Pretty much any team and any player will go hot and cold in a lengthy season.

And, as the original poster mentioned earlier, I do not question the fan status either of people that act like idiots (to me) saying so-and-so should retire or are just way too knee-jerkish, even though I'd like to punch them half the time for not using their brains. As much as I think the knee-jerk reaction is stupid, I don't like getting into the real vs. fake fan b.s. because of whether you are knee-jerkish or a puckbunny or whatever because that's all it is, b.s. If you watch the games and have an interest in the team doing well, you're a fan.

However, a lot of these people get butthurt if they get called out, they might yell that others are homers or can't question the team or whatever. I'm certainly not implying that and I'm sorry, but I have just as much right as you do to state my case and say that you are acting obnoxious if you think the sky is falling or stuff like so and so should retire after just 1 or 2 games in a season or any other player is useless when it obviously won't happen and these players are certainly capable professionals, or else they wouldn't be here. Again, everybody will ebb/flow from time to time and pinning losses or singling out one player to blame for a loss by the team is incredibly stupid unless it is dead obvious. For one person's lack of production in a game, I can probably give you several of other examples that were major factors in a loss (i.e. in Dallas loss - Osgood getting a s**tload of blame letting in 4 goals that he pretty much had little/no chance on all of them even though Dallas had limited opps. - what about lack of power play production, Stuart being lackadasial on one of the 3rd or 4th goals, etc.).

Basically, to me it's all about the tone. Don't being so knee-jerkish in a panic or pissed off mode and you'll be taken a bit more seriously. Example - "Player x is a weak puckhandler or not aggressive enough". Good tone even though I might not like it and might not agree with you. "THIS DUDE IS USELESS AND NEEDS TO BE TRADED FOR A BAG OF PUCKS OR SHOULD RETIRE!!!", bad tone.

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I remember starting a thread like this awhile back and everyone jumped all over me for it. I guess people have strong opinions, think they are always right, know what is best for the team, and stuck in their ways. People have a wide-ranging definition of what a 'true fan' is. Some say fans are supposed to criticize the team constantly, while others say they should support the team in every instance. I say it's somewhere in the middle there.

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Guest scottj

Successful teams have a high majority of Bandwagon fans. Letsgowings has a high concentration of these people. Look at the post count and join join date and their rep to see if they are bandwagon fans or simpleton.

Um, those three things aren't going to accurately depict if somebody is a bandwagon fan or not... apparently if you just found out about these boards you're a bandwagoner? or if you've been a member for a while and just don't go on the internet you are too?

... really?

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