This is part II of a short series comparing the lacrosse experience in Buffalo and Toronto. Part I was my own observations. This second one contains other people’s comments as well as a summary.

As I mentioned in the previous article, I have never been harassed in any way wearing my Rock jersey in Buffalo, and none of my Bandit-supporting friends have had bad experiences in Toronto. But unfortunately, that’s not true for everyone.

A player’s wife told me a story of when she was cheering for her husband (who played for the visiting team) while in Toronto a couple of years ago. Her husband had been hurt and was down on the floor, but she didn’t know how bad it was. The woman behind her was shouting things like “get up you f**king pussy”. The player’s wife was there with their toddler who was already upset that daddy was hurt. She turned around and politely informed the screaming lady that it was her husband who was hurt and that their child is quite upset, and asked her to stop. The lady simply told her AND her crying child to f**k off. Nobody around her said a word to this obnoxious woman.

She acknowledged to me that this was a rare incident and that not all Rock fans are like that, but she hasn’t been back to a Rock game since and it’s hard to blame her. Not only am I shocked at the douchebag who yelled at her and her child, but I’m surprised that other fans around her didn’t step up and tell this lady to STFU.

A few thoughts from other fans:

@TimNThen: “Probably biased, but Buffalo is better. Swennie is more into it. More basic fan interactive. Have had probs with Rock fans.”

@hardison34: “Rock season tic holder. Buffalo is what Rock games were like at Maple Leaf Gardens. Very envious. Rock lost 7000 fans somehow!”

@hardison34: “By the way, Bruce Barker has been increasingly repetitive and annoying. Toronto..do you want another,always when opp. has ball”

[GP: I figure this is because after the goal there’s a faceoff, and Toronto usually loses those. So by the time Barker has finished announcing the goal and asks “Do you want another?”, the opponents already have the ball. This has been much better this year, thanks to Brad Kri.]

@kevinmad: “not a fan of either team, but have been to both. Toronto was a awesome experience with great fans. Buffalo not so much #khawks”

[GP: The lone dissenting opinion.]

Steve Lorimer: “Buffalo atmosphere is way better! Probably because they’re owned and operated under NHL ownership! Toronto rock should be too! There’s more fans in Buffalo and most people are covered head to toe in bandits clothing! The announcer is even better! What’s he got? NOTHING! Toronto has nothing! Gotta change things around here but fans doesn’t want or like idea if mlse owns the rock…”

[GP: I’m not sure I agree with MLSE owning the Rock being a good thing, but that’s a whole ‘nother article…]

Extras

I said in Part I that I wasn’t going to look at food or ticket prices, but I will mention them briefly. Not only are the tickets cheaper in Buffalo but the outdoor parking lot right next to the arena is $10 – parking that close to the ACC would be $20 at least. There’s a parking garage connected to the FNC which is a little more expensive ($15 I think, still not terrible) but it’s a nightmare to get out of after the game. We walk the three minutes past it to the outdoor lot and we’re generally on the expressway in no more than ten minutes. Five minutes after that, we’re at the border.

The food and beer options are different but I can’t really compare them. When I’m at games, I rarely buy anything more than a Coke Zero (or a Diet Coke in Buffalo since they don’t have Coke Zero ), and maybe popcorn if my kids are there and hungry. Depending on timing we sometimes get dinner at the arena, and usually opt for a pizza slice or hot dog; we don’t get the more expensive pulled pork sandwich or beef on a weck. Thus I can’t compare the food quality in the two arenas other than to say the popcorn is comparable.

One other issue in Buffalo (other than the Diet Coke fiasco): my younger son isn’t a big fan of soft drinks but the only other option we could find for him was water or unsweetened iced tea. Did you know: it’s a scientific fact that you can’t add sugar to unsweetened iced tea and make it taste good.

Conclusion

Of the people I talked to, just one person preferred the Toronto experience to Buffalo, and it wasn’t me. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Rock and have no plans to stop going to Rock games. For me, the game is the main thing and the atmosphere is fine. But I do love going to games in Buffalo. The game is still the main thing for me but it’s just so much fun – it feels like Toronto did in the early 2000’s when we were getting 17,000+ to every game. But even then, 10,000 fans in Buffalo were louder than 17,000 in Toronto.

I wish I could point to something and say “Hey Jamie Dawick, here are a couple of things you could do to bump attendance and improve the game experience!” Because you know, he probably hasn’t had teams of people looking into that for years. Also, what might work in Buffalo might not in Toronto, and vice versa. But as long as the Coke Zero is available, you’re on the right track.

I attended a recent Rock-Bandits game in Buffalo, and in my game report, I added an entire section about “Banditland environment notes”. Over the years, I’ve been to a number of NLL games in Buffalo, mostly Rock games. I try to get to at least one Rock @ Bandits game each season, sometimes more than one, and I’ve seen some other non-Rock games there as well. In fact, the first NLL game I ever attended was the Bandits hosting the Philadelphia Wings back in 2000. As for Rock home games, I’ve been at well over 90% of those since 2001.

I decided to write a whole article comparing the experiences of a Rock game in Toronto with a Bandits game in Buffalo. Then I reached out to my audience and twitter followers to see if they had any comments, and got a few. The article ended up getting kinda long so I split it into two. This first one is my own observations. The second one (coming tomorrow) will be other people’s comments as well as a summary.

I’m just talking about the game experience itself – I’m not talking about parking or food options or ticket prices or the quality of the cheese sauce on the nachos (mostly – I’ll touch on this stuff a little in Part II). I know these are all part of the whole “game-day experience” but there’s stadiumjourney.com for that (Toronto gets a 4.1, Buffalo gets a 4.6 – both reviews written by the same guy).

Please remember that when I say “Many fans are <whatever>” or “Many fans <do or don’t do something>”, I don’t mean ALL fans, I just mean “I see this occurring in arena A more often than in arena B”. This could be due to my own biases, or where I sit, or any number of other things. It’s also possible that since many more people generally attend games in Buffalo (13-18k this year) than in Toronto (8-10k), certain things just happen more often. Thus it may seem that something is more prevalent when it’s really the same. I’m sure you and your friends don’t do these terrible things. But others do.

As a rule I don’t generalize. But yes, I know there is some generalization here.

Buffalo

Pros

• Very loud
• Swennie (aka Chris Swenson, the Bandits PA announcer) is one of the best. He and the fans have catch phrases for specific players – Dhane Smith, Benesch, Tavares, Steenhuis – and specific situations. Swennie was asking “What’s he got?” on a big save long before they were doing it in Edmonton or Calgary. FYI: His nickname is not “Sweaty” as I once thought it was.
• Fans really get into the game. Chants are sometimes started by fans and sometimes by Swennie. Far more often by the fans than in Toronto.
• Way more fans dress up, colour their hair, wear face paint, hold up painted signs, etc. Very little of that in Toronto.
• I’ve always liked their penalty chant. When an opposing player gets a penalty, they chant “B‑O‑X! B‑O‑X! To the box! To the box! To the box box box!” When I first started going to Bandits games, that was it. In recent years they’ve sped the whole thing up and added a “Woooo” to the end, but I don’t like it quite as much now because the “Woooo” seems to be the focus. Now it’s “B‑O‑X! B‑O‑X! Totheboxtotheboxtotheboxboxbox WOOOOO!“
• I don’t remember Swennie ever taking cheap shots at the other team or players like some other announcers do. Or did before they were let go by the Mammoth. Not to mention any names.

Cons

• Very loud, which is a con if you don’t like that sort of thing. But then who goes to a pro sporting event hoping it will be quiet?
• In my experience, there seem to be more “homers” in Buffalo, i.e. booing or screaming for a penalty every time a Bandit is checked (legal or not), booing every time a Bandit is given a penalty (deserved or not), that kind of thing. If I were an NLL ref, I’m not sure I’d like working games in Buffalo.
• At the game that inspired this article, every time a Rock player was hit to the floor and needed the trainer to come out (it happened three times), some Bandits fans around us accused them of faking the injuries. I’ve seen this more often in Buffalo than in Toronto.

Toronto

Pros

• Fewer fans as in previous years but the ones that are left are generally die-hards and are pretty lacrosse-savvy. They will applaud good defensive plays and penalty killing, not just good goals.
• PA announcer Bruce Barker also doesn’t take shots at the other team or its players. The closest he’ll get is saying “Let’s crush the Rush!” or something to that effect, but even that he’ll say once at the beginning of the game and that’s it.
• In playoffs games or overtime, I’ve heard the Toronto crowds get pretty loud. They’re not generally as loud as Buffalo, only in certain situations.
• If an opposing player gets injured and is down on the floor for a while, there is almost always applause when he gets up, even if he has to be carried off the floor. I don’t generally hear accusations of diving or faking injuries, or at least not as many as I have in Buffalo. But that doesn’t mean they don’t occur. (Foreshadowing for Part II)

Cons

• Fewer fans as in previous years. I wrote about this last month.
• Quiet for the most part. They obviously shout when the Rock score and when they win and during fights and such, but just during regular play, there’s not much noise.
• Barker does his best to get the crowd fired up but it doesn’t always work. Fans yell “Go Rock Go!” as long as Barker is yelling it over the PA, but once he stops, the crowd stops almost immediately. If Nick Rose makes a great save, Barker yells “Rooooooo-sey!” and sometimes the crowd yells “Roooooo-sey!” back, but sometimes not. But when Rose is having a really good game, the “Rosey”s are louder.
• I’ve heard the crowd start “Go Rock Go” or similar chants by themselves with no help from Barker, but rarely. Usually only in playoff games. There is one that the fans do themselves – when the Rock score, a group of fans (mostly in section 118) stand up, chant the opposing goalie’s last name three times, and then add “You suck!” (This is quite amusing when the Rock score their fifth goal of the game in the fourth quarter while the opponents have 15 or so.) Also, earlier this year Nick Rose was having a spectacular game and a chant of “Rosey! Rosey! Rosey!” started from the fans.

In every arena in the league, there are stories about fans of the opposing team being harassed by home team fans, but as I mentioned above, I have never personally had any trouble at all in Buffalo. I have worn a Toronto Rock jersey to every Bandits/Rock game I’ve been to in Buffalo (except the “Tucker out Lymphoma” night this past April when I wore my “Braver than Brave” t-shirt) and have never been harassed in any way. In fact, after Canada won the hockey gold medal in the 2002 Olympics, I had Bandits fans see my Rock jersey and congratulate me on the victory. I also know some Bandits fans who sit with us at Rock games and they’ve never been harassed because of their Bandits jerseys, except once by Iggy but that was fun.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. But that’s a story for another day.