Yes, I think that’s where Mr. Young missed the point of the whole thing. Obviously, the forbidden chant is not the most erudite expression ever to peal across a football stadium. But this is because it was not created by businessmen, nor workshopped in order to estimate its market potential, nor refined through focus groups so that it could maximize profit. Instead, as many people here have pointed out, chanting “Argos $uck!? is an organic custom that grew out of the history and heritage of the Ticat-Argo rivalry, and therefore out of the wider historical relationship between Toronto and Hamilton.
“Argos $uck? is memetic. It was forged in Hamiltonian vernacular for specific reasons, at a specific time, as both NSK and Matelot have elegantly pointed out. It became more popular as the years went by because of these historical associations. With this tradition now approaching the half-century mark, “Argos $uck!? is something that should be celebrated, not forbidden.
Regardless, the forbidden chant is not going away, and has in fact reached new heights in popularity and cultural exposure since Mr. Young released his Syllabus of Errors way back in 2004, wherein he announced his personal vendetta against the beloved phrase.
After the debacle of 2005 (during which time diplomatic overtures to Mr. Young from the forbidden demographic were rebuked with malice), many began to fear that a “curse? had resulted from this personal vendetta. However, a losing record of 5-13 in the same year that a chant was forbidden for the first time in Tiger-Cat history could just as easily be written off as coincidence. Then, after the debacle of 2006 (during which time diplomatic overtures to Mr. Young from the forbidden demographic were again rebuked with malice), many were now sure as to the source of the curse.
The worst part is, in the same year that Mr. Young was pillorying his own fans, raising beer prices and conspiring to up the cost of tickets, the dreaded (and perennially over .500) argos were selling season packages for a little over a hundred bucks, and were inviting their attendees to come down on the field after the game to meet the players, with no stipulations as to personal chant preference. Allowing the argos to upstage the Ticat organization in this way, on and off the field, is surely a symptom of some kind of curse.
And so here we are in 2007. Mr. Young has conceded many mistakes. He has referred to himself as an “idiot? numerous times, in the press and in public. Yet apparently he still thinks that impugning the motives of Tiger-Cat fans and exposing us to the residue of his personal hang-ups is still a great idea. And, coincidentally or not, the foibles keep piling up.
Perhaps there is no such thing as a curse. But there is such a thing as institutional atmosphere, corporate environment, etc., wherein poisonous policy can have a very real trickle-down effect into unexpected areas of an operation. The forbidding of our beloved chant is a vestige of the old way of doing things from the “idiot? era, yet for some reason this edict is still in force. When placed in the context of the many, many complaints that have appeared on this message board lately, it makes you wonder if anything really has changed. Call it karma, call it come-uppance, or call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I think there is more to this “curse? thing than one might initially expect.
It has become something of an annual tradition on ticats.ca to discuss the purported existence of a curse. And it has similarly become tradition to beg Mr. Young to repeal, re-define, or otherwise end the forbidding of the sacred chant. However, after three years of trying, and after a foreboding opening day loss, and after reading many legitimate complaints in thread after thread, one can only lament.
