It’s your ticket and you can boo if you want to

Let me just say this up front: I’ve been a fan of Jake Gardiner during essentially his entire time with the Leafs. Yes, I realize he’s made a blunder or two and been on the wrong end of some high-risk plays, but when arguments over his value to the team get going I’m far more often than not on the pro-Jake team. Toronto very well might have to lose him to free agency this summer, and I’ll be sad to see him go.

With that in mind, let me also say that the fans in attendance at Scotiabank Arena on Monday night were totally within their rights to boo him in the game against the Avalanche.

Actually, you know what? That’s an awful way to put it. Of course they were “within rights” to do it. But the argument that’s raged on since has really been around whether they should have, if they’re “true fans”, or even if someone else on the team perhaps deserved it more. The discussion that’s taken place over this little incident – perhaps the most polarizing since WaffleGate or SaluteGate – has, for me, given way to a pretty simple realization. This is all being taken a little too seriously. From the fan infighting to the media questions to the players having to answer for all of it. Boo a little if you want to, it’s your ticket. And I’m saying this as someone who definitely would not have.

Look, you might believe hockey is a “true sport” compared to professional wrestling, or that it’s more important than an episode of a television drama, and maybe you’re right. But at the end of the day these are all forms of entertainment. Live sports is a spectacle, and when you get entrenched in slicing it apart and analyzing it as a hobby or as a full-time job, it’s perhaps easy to lose your grasp on that.

What does a typical night at an NHL game look like? Fans trickle in an hour before the game starts and watch players warm up to insanely loud Drake songs while kids hope to get pucks flipped to them over the glass. When things are set to get under way, the lights dim and flash and music gets crazier than before. The game starts and in between every single whistle the jumbo screen is screaming at you to “Get Louder” while people do Fortnite dances and someone in a bright shirt yells for you to buy 50/50 tickets. Beer and popcorn are flowing, everything is geared toward you noticing you’re at an EVENT. The event.

I get the sense that a lot of the complaints about Gardiner being booed on Monday were centered around the idea that the people booing obviously haven’t looked at his entire body of work and couldn’t be true fans because they don’t realize how good he is. I mean, maybe that’s partly true, but I don’t know if it needs to be that deep. Gardiner is performing at an entertainment event and some things didn’t go his way so the folks who paid upward of 500-dollars apiece to attend gave him a little shit for it. Is it possible we could just leave it at that? At this point, no, it doesn’t seem that way.

The thing to remember is the overwhelming majority of fans at the game are there for a night out, to take in that spectacle. They’re not following along with the game on Twitter and waiting to crush someone else’s point with an “I told you so” or to screengrab a heat map showing that Gardiner’s xGF% actually makes him the Leafs’ most valuable defenceman. They’re just there to watch, maybe cheer if something good happens and complain if something bad does. As long as they don’t cross the obvious lines, I can’t see what’s wrong with it. And yes, perhaps guys like Nylander, due to his high-profile contract dispute, and Gardiner, due to his polarizing style, will get more than what’s a fair share of those boos. But who cares? None of this should be all that serious for anyone.

And don’t conflate this argument with defending pointed personal attacks toward Gardiner or others on the team through social media and such. Obviously that stuff needs to be condemned, always, and those people ARE morons. But that and fans booing or sarcastically cheering at the game itself are worlds apart.

Now, I realize the players were asked about the fan reaction after the game and got emotional about it. Players came to Gardiner’s defense and I’d expect nothing less. Even Jake himself was clearly upset about it. Trust me when I say I’m not approaching this from a “F*#k your feelings” angle and saying he should just brush it off and laugh. I just wish he could, and I’m wondering if we’ve taken things so far the other way and made sports so serious and pressure-filled that we’ve created a place where he can’t.