The AHL – Hockey for hockey fans

Ed. note: Magics Johnson, of Chairman Howe’s Glorious Army, debuts with this column about his passion for the AHL.  He’ll be writing for us on occasion. Keep in mind, his views do not necessarily reflect those of The Phoenix Pub (we’re sure Rochester is a lovely place). Enjoy!

When I tell people that I run a website, I am invariably asked, “Yeah? What’s your site about?” When I tell them that it is about the ups and downs of a minor league hockey team, they usually smile and feign just enough interest to seem polite then never ask anything more. You know what, though? Fuck ‘em; it’s their loss.

See, here’s the thing – very quietly, the American Hockey League has positioned itself into being the second best hockey league on the planet. With an alumni roster that includes the likes of Martin Brodeur, Jay Bouwmeester, Jason Spezza and virtually all of this year’s NHL All Star squads, the AHL has become the top developmental league in the world. Throw in a healthy number of grizzled NHL veteran types like Mike Keane (still going strong on the other side of 40), Darren McCarty and Claude Lemieux, and the result is a hockey league that has something for every taste. You like offense? Alexandre Giroux put in 61 goals for Hershey last year. You like young prospects? Brandon Sutter and Zach Bogosian spent time in the American League last season. You want to see the rough stuff? You go look up Jon Mirasty on YouTube and try to NOT be entertained.

The AHL is, by no means, a glamorous sports league. More often than not, teams hit the road on charter buses rather than charter planes, headed off in the middle of the night to such exotic locales as Glens Falls, New York, Hershey, Pennsylvania and Norfolk, Virginia. There are no four-star hotels or state of the art dressing rooms for the boys. Many times, guys have to make personal appearances during the seasons at all kinds of meet and greets, signing autographs at a local gas station or participating in celebrity bartending at a Buffalo Wild Wings or something like that. Shared townhouses or cramped apartments substitute for the luxurious homes in gated communities. In every sense of the phrase, playing in the AHL is a large part of the journey on the way to making a lifelong dream come true.

For everything that it isn’t, the AHL is, perhaps, professional hockey in its purest form. It’s young bucks making a name for themselves on the way to NHL stardom, and old-timers hanging on for no other reason than they just love to play the game. It’s fans bringing in flasks and jello shooters for when last call comes and goes. It’s games on AM radio or local cable stations once or twice a year. Really, it’s a hockey league for hockey fans.

For us Crunch fans, we take this identity to heart. We tailgate in the dark on frigid January nights atop parking garages. We fill up our decrepit arena and shake the walls 40 nights a season. We cheer and boo with everything we have, almost as if it’s us out there on the ice. We spend embarrassing amounts of money on game-worn jerseys every year. In every sense, these are Our Boys…part of this giant cartoonish family of true believers called Crunch fans.

Amerks v. Crunch

For our family, a large part of that membership is predicated on an almost irrational hatred of the fans, team and general city of Rochester. I’ve been a lot of places and seen a lot of things in my time, but I can honestly say that very few things in the sports world match the intensity of the hatred between these two groups. Really, I’m not kidding; you can take your Yankees-Red Sox, Eagles-Cowboys, Arsenal-Tottenham and whatever else you’d like, Crunch-Americans ranks right up there with the biggest and nastiest of them all. I’ve seen pregnant women nearly come to blows during intermissions. Coaches have thrown water bottles at one another over the partition between the benches at our barn. Hell, I’ve seen one particularly drunken group of Crunch fans try to torch the Rochester team bus on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s a very real, very bitter rivalry going into its sixteenth year, and it’s burning hotter than ever. The fact that we get to play those cocksuckers a dozen times a season in an eighty game schedule is that extra little something in my season. Really, I hate that team, their fans and everything about them. Fuck them all with Rock Hudson’s rotted, AIDS infested cock.

That kind of passion is not unique in the AHL. Every city in the league has a group like us here in Syracuse. Every team’s fan base is just as passionate as us, and that’s what makes the league so special. We may not have the glittering new arenas or the fancy trappings of our NHL parents, but I’ll put our passion and love for our game and our guys up against any fan base in any sport in the world. In a lot of ways, it’s not just what we do. It’s who we are, and we’re damn proud of it.

For a lot of you reading this, there’s an AHL club somewhere near you. If you’ve never been to a game, give it a chance this season. Come on over, join the party. It’s the best three hours you can spend with your pants on during the winter.

Oh, and fuck Rochester and their asshole fans.

Raise a Glass

Put the Glass Down

Tags: AHL, magics johnson, No really - I hate Rochester with the fire of 10000 suns, Rochester Americans, Syracuse Crunch
Categories: Domestics

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 18th, 2009 at 11:30 am and is filed under Domestics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.