Sports Therapy

by E. James Beale


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Published: Jan 28, 2009

When it comes to professional sports, more often than not it's hard to be a fan. The losses break your heart, and since only one unit in a typical 30-team league can win a championship in a given year, that means about 97 percent of professional teams (a number which seems somehow higher here in Philly) go home empty-handed per annum. Perhaps it's our own fault for having such unrealistic expectations — by any reasonable measure, the Eagles' miserable failure of a season was a rousing success — but that doesn't lessen the pain. So with that in mind, I recently set out to reclaim what I love about sports in the unlikeliest of places: my first ever minor-league hockey game, a Friday night showdown between the Philadelphia Phantoms and the Lowell Devils at the soon-to-be-demolished Wachovia Spectrum. Danny Briere, the Flyers' high-scoring center, was still on his minor league rehabilitation assignment, but I wasn't in the building as press. A friend of a friend plays for Lowell and offered us passes to the game, along with a promise that "Briere is a dead man." For the first time in recent memory, I attended a game as a fan. And like everyone else in the dingy arena, I had an absolute ball.

Phantoms/Pedro Cancel

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

When you enter the former home of Sir Charles, Moses and Doctor J, the first thing you notice is the light: Shockingly dim for a professional sporting arena, the visual effect is similar to a thin fog or a bad hangover. There are other signs that the building is less of a priority than it once was. The in-house music, for instance, has evidently not been updated since the 76ers and Flyers left in 1996. And two signs hanging over one concession stand advertise the same beer for two different prices: The first markets it for $6.25, the second a full dollar more (the actual price, it turned out, is $6.50). Naturally, credit cards are not accepted. Combine all this with the facts that the in-game action is a little slower, no one's dressed up, and even die-hards can identify the players only by their jersey numbers, and the shift from the Wachovia Center to its elder neighbor is like going from your new plasma screen to that grainy 20-year-old set you used to catch the original Spectrum games on.

Still, just as I used to get far more excited as a kid hand-tuning the knob to get better reception than I do hitting "on" and flopping back, so, too, does the old Spectrum make an event feel more truly electric. Over the past year, I've been credentialed into the Sixers' first post-AI playoffs ever, the Birds' improbable win in the Meadowlands and the World Series. On not one of those occasions was I nearly as excited as when I found out that our tickets to the Phantoms game entitled us to use the VIP entrance — a door that opens perhaps 20 feet down from a standard entrance and cuts maybe 90 seconds off our trip to our seats.

Inside, people screamed for wacky promotional giveaways in a way they don't at Phillies games, cheered whenever the Phantoms did something productive, yet never seemed too down when the Devils scored. Maybe it was the high proportion of kids in the crowd, but the joy of fandom for its own sake was evident.

The game itself ended at about 9, with Briere safe, but that was never really the point of the outing. (Briere has since been put on the disabled list following surgery to his groin and stomach.) We headed down to the locker rooms and caught up with the guy who got us in. Now before I go on, I should say a word about groupies: Groupies, as a rule, prioritize. Star players receive star treatment, and star groupies — and second-tier players tend to get what remains. Obviously I haven't done extensive research in the field, but it wouldn't surprise me if the scantily clad predators kept to-do lists, crossing off would-be targets throughout the night before landing on their inevitable mark. Now, to be gentle, it seems like minor league hockey groupies are to baseball groupies what minor league hockey is to baseball — both in terms of talent and dedication. I've seen women mistake one Phillie for a better-known teammate, but groupies who freely admit to just looking for anyone are virtually unheard of — until now. As my buddy and I were circling the walkway under the stadium trying to get to the exit, we were stopped by two girls wandering out of what appeared to be the mail room (not a joke). I have no idea how they got there, but smart money says they weren't sober. "Are you hot hockey players?" one of them asked, completely serious.

Now, look, I'm fine with the assumption that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so I'll ignore the "hot" part for the moment. But my buddy and I probably average a lanky 155 pounds. If you took a serious analytical look at us you would inevitably come to the conclusion that not only are we not professional athletes, but it would be pretty implausible for either of us to have a cousin who is a professional athlete. Fandom, I think, is more about camaraderie than missed dreams, but the part of me that wishes I had the talent and dedication to make it pro loved this exchange. It was a moment that had nothing to do with wins and losses and everything to do with all that is random and compelling about sports as a whole.

After a night of questionable VIP perks, unfettered enthusiasm and misguided groupie come-ons, the interaction felt like the icing on the cake. Following a week of feeling physically ill over the fact that a hometown team came up short again, it was good to remember that not only do I love the games, I love the whole show. Did I care about the 5-4 Phantoms win? No, of course not. But I did get a pleasant distraction and was able to remember how strange and entertaining this world that we too often take so seriously actually is. Somehow, 32-25 doesn't seem so bad anymore.

Trying very hard to still like sports? Visit the Sports Complex, citypaper.net/sports.