OF HOOPS & HOOPLA

I chose “Whatever”. Mainly because at a game I have a hard time being distracted from the game itself.
But I know what you mean.

but that being said, I can understand the reasoning behind it. They’re trying to fill the gaps. Basketball, unlike American Football or Baseball is a game very much removed from anticipation. Only the very well informed can pick out what plays are being run and might hypothesize what the coach’s might do in response.

It’s also always indoors, which means when its loud it sounds all the louder, and when its quiet, the difference is astounding. The noise is psychological warfare, and the one thing you can’t do when you’re battling someone’s morale is let them see through you. Let them hear a gasping silence and they’ll know they can win. Make the noise distracting just as your opponent hits their stride, and reign it in when your team is doing well.

On the personal side, does the hoopla improve my game experience? No, they remind me of commercials. I wouldn’t mind watching a game without any of that. Even remove the cheerleaders. It won’t happen though, because teams in the current NBA climate can’t take the chance that the noise isn’t helping. The opportunity cost simply isn’t high enough.

I don’t mind it too much though ….and it is fun for my kids

(age 47)

and my and my beer(or whiskey depending on the night) to notice. i enjoy watching the blazers game so much that it blinds me to all the other crap that goes on. i do enjoy the beat la chants though, or when everybody yells “batuuuuuuuum” when he hits a three or blocks a shot, the rudy chants, they are all part of the fun. i dont like all that other crap though such as prizes and contests and what not or the big screen.. i do enjoy the blazer dancers though. terran(sp) use to party at my house all of the time.

was that the amount and volume level of the canned racket (euphemistically called music) increased dramatically. It became almost impossible to have a conversation with the person next to you without shouting during a time out.

I was also one of the fans in the MC that liked to carry on two-way exchanges with the referees (which the old timers like Hugh Hollins enjoyed doing), but in good humor. No vulgarity or anything inappropriate. Other fans in my area seemed to enjoy those exchanges and liked to join in. There were a number of veteran referees that remembered us and engaged in continuing gags over the years. That became impossible in the Rose Garden because of the canned racket (although the league directed the referees to became more aloof and less interactive with the fans at about that same time).

For the most part I don’t mind the extraneous activities, but the balance between a constant assault on the senses and some slightly quieter communication and processing time just seemed much better in the days at the MC. Perhaps they feel like they need to constantly keep the additional 7000+ fans in the upper decks entertained and involved since virtually every seat in the MC was closer to the action than those seats.

In general, the enthusiasm in the RG feels more artificially generated than it did in the MC, which would positively rock with little encouragement necessary. And when the RG crowd gets really involved it’s treated like some sort of challenge to see if the PA system can continue to be the dominant noise source, rather than backing off a little and letting the crowd take over. Just my $0.02 (adjusted for inflation).

was in 1999, so I’m not the best gauge of what’s happening these days.

For me, though, the less hoopla, the better. Although I’m slightly north of forty, so this may be the curmudgeon in me….

I can tune it out for the most part. I do believe that Blazers fans don’t really ever pay attention to the big box telling us what to do because every game I have gone to, noise starts or its quiet regardless of what its trying to tell us to do because of the fan bases knowledge of the game.

One of the best games I ever went to was a Portland vs Utah game back in the Isaiah Rider and Sheed days. I went with some friends from Utah who were Jazz fans. The game went 2 or 3 overtimes. The crowd was so loud I was literally and inch from my friends ear screaming at the top of my lung’s and she still couldn’t hear me. When Sheed or another Blazer was at the line, the Rose Garden would start a low sounding “Sheeeeeeeeeeed” or be absolutely quiet. With a made freethrow, the crowd erupted in noise! We won the game, and later found out from interviews that the Utah players couldn’t hear the plays being called out because of the noise.

So I guess my point is that I don’t believe its necessary for us as fans at the game. We’re loud enough as is that that stuff starts going into the background anyway. Between quarters and halftime? I’m doing other stuff and talking and there is no game happening so I couldn’t care less what they got going on down there on the court or on the screen.

I have been to a decent number of games in the last few years and I feel like people are waiting for the triggers and cues to get them going. If they took those away, the spontaneous and more sustained energy would probably come back.

What really, really bugs me are the white inflatable noise makers. The noise if you are in the middle of them is really annoying, and they you can’t see anything with everyone holding them up high and banging away. I’ve given up on ever sitting behind the baskets (unless the tickets are free).

Don’t care for the Blazer Dancers either – I’m not there for titillation.

I had to drive all the way down from seattle. When i arrived i admittedly was slightly put off by all of the perifery stuff. All the moneymaking ads, all the microphone led cheers, that crappy thing you call a mascot (seriously someone should adopt squatch, he deserves better.)

But then an amazing and magical thing happened. I was sitting there, cheering a blowout win for my new favorite team and suddenly it was no longer for the pride of the players, for the heat of the moment, for the thrill of the score…no it was for….chalupas.

Now i may have been the only NBA fan on the face of the planet to not know about the Taco Bell-NBA connection, but I assure you for an all too brief and wonderful few seconds i was cheering “Chalupa! Chalupa!” wildly with no notion whatsoever of why, where, or what any of it meant. And then someone scored. I dont remember who, i just remember looking at my friend and him exclaiming that we had, to our credit TWO free chalupas the next time we went to a taco bell.

This excited me so much that i insisted we hit the nearest Taco Bell on the way back to his house where i was crashing for the night. We must have walked an extra 7 or 8 blocks out of our way only to be refused by a late night drive through man telling us we had to bring a car. But i was not to be foiled so easily. With chalupa based adrenaline still pumping through my veins, we headed straight for my car and drove BACK to the taco bell. And oh dear lord was it worth it. Brandon Roy, my hero was feeding me. He and the Blazers were fulfilling the most basic need not just of me, but of ALL humans big and small. It was a beautiful moment.