As sports fan have we lost our way and forgotten how to properly support our teams? If so the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games will serve as a great refresher course in root, root, rooting for the home team.
Word has begun to circulate about the list of banned items you’re not allowed to bring into the Games and it is actually quite important information. For all those planning on showing up to an event please check out the list here first, you do not want to have to turn over a number of items you brought from home at the gates upon arrival.
Thunder Struck Down
Newspaper articles have been published regarding thundersticks, the all too common fact of our sporting reality these days, along with air horns and trumpets appearing on the banned items list.
Some people are left perplexed for what to do since at most major sporting events these days fans are handed something to make noise with as they walk through the gates, and many times that is in fact a pair of thundersticks. So as a person that has found himself in many loud, cheering based situations at various sporting events of all kinds over the years I feel I may be able to offer some helpful advice.
Back in the good ol' days...
The answer lies back in those good old days of yore, and the answer is actually quite simple: CHEER! Cheer, shout, yell, scream, jump up and down, and do it all in support of your side. There is a time and a place for everything and a venue like the Games is perfect for that loud outburst of emotion that would surely have you escorted from most places on a regular business day.
Thundersticks haven't always been around; in fact, thundersticks are very recent, especially on the North American sporting scene. And before the introduction of those inflatable plastic rods, which migrated from South Korea and many Asian baseball leagues to North America just after the turn of the millennium, we the people ourselves would resonate arenas and stadiums; clapping our hands, stomping our feet, and just shouting out loud. We continuously brought the house down on a regular basis we were just that good.
This move can actually be seen as returning an element of fun and rivalry that sporting events may have lost recently. The 2010 Winter Games will surely turn into an unofficial worldwide cheer off; without the assistance of any of the amplifying devices we’ve began to rely so heavily upon it’s now a honest question of which nation's fan base can make the most noise to support their athletes.
SHOUT!
And also returning to the mix is the fun of creating new cheers as well as yelling out the classics with the crowd. That great feeling you get when, even if everyone already knows the cheer, you've rallied some people in your section to get it started and now it has spread across the entire venue.
As well as that sheepish, embarrassing yet fully enjoyable moment when you realize that you have gone one extra round further than everybody else in a cheer and you can hear your voice stand alone. It truly is all about the small things in life isn't it.
It's back to the fans to provide all the atmosphere and excitement and it's fairly obvious that once again, without question, we will bring the house down. And we'll be doing it all on our own too!
Watch for my follow up article, "What to do when you Lose your Voice within 10 hours of Arriving at the Games", over the coming weeks.
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