Sports rivalries in the NHL have been around for decades. From the Original Six to the Battle of Ontario Leafs-Senators, it comes as no surprise that fans are passionate about their teams and, therefore, want their favourite team to be the best, see their rivals lose and take home the Stanley Cup.
The Internet and social media have made sports rivalries even more pronounced.
But with division of fandoms and bashing of teams and players come harsh insults that anyone can see online.
Many NHL players, other professional athletes and their family members have social media accounts to connect to the general public, but that should not give the public the right to dig into an athlete’s personal affairs and harass them online.
While athletes should try to connect to their fans, they and their families should consider keeping their accounts private or changing their privacy settings to avoid harassment from angry fans and Internet trolls.
After the Toronto Maple Leafs lost five straight games (much to the pleasure of many Sens fans considering how they are doing these days), Leafs supporters bashed goalie James Reimer’s wife, April Reimer, on Twitter since he himself does not have an official Twitter account.
The story made headlines across Canada and Canadians saw how guilt by association exists on the Internet as well.
Quite a few Ottawa Senators have Twitter accounts, including goaltender Craig Anderson, defencemen Eric Gryba and Erik Karlsson and forwards Kyle Turris and Erik Condra. The majority of their tweets have to do with hockey – meaning they keep their professional lives separate from their personal ones, enabling them to have somewhat of a different persona in the off season and offline. And despite the Senators being out of playoff contention, disappointed fans have not been as disrespectful compared with some Leafs fans.
While many Canadians between the ages of 20 and 40 are on Facebook, Twitter is another story. While more people join Twitter every year, the majority of account holders with high amounts of followers are celebrities, athletes, politicians, news organizations, and major corporations.
People are more likely to share their personal stories on Facebook, but that may also be because there isn’t a 140-character limit.
Regarding Facebook, these people are too famous to have a personal account, so they have a page which anyone can like and post things, but another user can’t see it right away without clicking the tab to show posts by other users.
At the same time, fake pages do exist and should be reported and hopefully removed if abuse happens there as well.
However, after an account is reported, it takes days to weeks before it is removed, meaning the harassment can continue.
All users should start learning about privacy settings on social media websites, and should watch what they say online.
A deleted post, tweet or comment can stay on the Internet forever, and could even lead to libel lawsuits, which could cause an even greater scandal for athletes and their families.
As it’s unlikely that everyone will learn how to conduct themselves appropriately online, family members of athletes should keep their social media accounts as private as possible to limit harassment.
Simply looking into, changing and updating one’s privacy settings as needed can do much of this.
Thankfully, there are people who shot down the people harassing Reimer’s wife. She responded very civilly, refusing to lash out at others and thanking those who stood by her.
Just as athletes are required to exercise good sportsmanship on and off the ice, so too should their fans online and offline. It should be common sense.
While changing privacy settings is good for now, fans should remember there are real people behind these accounts.