Blackhawks 3, Mighty Ducks 1

Another Sunday night, another hockey game. This one was much better attended than the last one, probably because of Anaheim's trip to the Stanley Cup Finals last season. One of Anaheim's best defensemen is Sandis Ozolinsh, who is more of a forward than a defenseman; I don't think he can actually skate backwards. Anyway, he is Latvian, and we had the pleasure of sitting near a small but very vocal and very enthusiastic group of Latvian hockey fans, there to cheer on their countryman. They were a riot. They had two cheers: San-di (I think that's a diminutive of Sandis, although it's possible they wouldn't pronounce the S in Latvian), and "Let's go, O-zo-linsh!" They alternated these cheers at top volume, interrupted by dancing and high-fives. It didn't seem to matter whether Ozolinsh was on the ice or not. They just loved him.

However, the Ugly Americans were out in full force. One drunk Chicago fan stood in front of them screaming "Let's go Blackhawks!" until the veins popped out in his forehead, and when they would respond by shouting "Let's go Ozolinsh!" even louder, he would shake his head exaggeratedly and scream again. This was funny until he apparently pushed one of them, and then he started flipping them off individually and screaming "Fuck you!" at them, also until his veins popped out. The Latvians took this goodnaturedly: they were just having fun, being positive about their countryman, and they weren't in the mood to argue. The Chicago fan went back to his seat for a while, but he and his friends were shouting xenophobic and abusive taunts at them the rest of the game. It didn't stop with them, either. When the Latvians got really drunk, they started cheering in Latvian. A group of college kids sitting near us took issue with this, screaming nonsense words that they thought sounded Latvian, or something. They also shouted abusive taunts and demands that the Latvians shut up. They screamed themselves hoarse. They behaved like complete idiots.

Latvia is a country about the size of West Virginia, and it has a population a little smaller than Chicago. Imagine moving halfway across the world, from a tiny country to one of the largest in the world. You go to a hockey game with your friends to cheer on one of your countrymen who excels at the highest level of competition, and your reward is threats from drunken Americans who have probably never been out of the Midwest. The Latvians weren't even Anaheim fans per se: some of them were wearing Blackhawks shirts. They were just cheering their favorite player. I hope they realize that not everybody feels the way the xenophobic idiots do. I was really ashamed to be a Blackhawks fan, and a little ashamed that those loudmouths might represent majority opinion in the US.