Former editor at The Globe and Mail and author of the novel Away Game.
It does not flatter my hometown of Philadelphia that, prior to the recent title game between the local Eagles and the Minnesota Vikings, a young enthusiast was arrested for punching a police horse.
He hit the cop, too, and he wasn't alone in his loutishness: Eagles fans flung full beer cans at Vikings supporters entering the stadium, then pelted the team's bus when the game was over. And the Eagles won, raising apocalyptic visions of what might have happened if they hadn't.
There is a fine line between colourful and contemptible, and Philly fans are notorious for crossing it. The reputation for rudeness transcends any one sport and extends to the city's own teams – that is, the venom often flies verbally at Philly players for poor performance or just some nebulous quality known only to the boo-birds.
Cracks come with the territory: Philadelphia is the birthplace of a nation and the proud home of a busted Liberty Bell.
Now, the city's tainted legacy of fandom faces a telling test, as the Philly faithful hit the road.
The Super Bowl will be contested on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, featuring the Eagles against the favoured New England Patriots. The Vikings had been fighting to become the first team to play the bowl at home – only to have the Eagles deny them. The excruciating result: The city must now host the heathens who abused Vikings fans back in the City of Brotherly Love.
The local slogan is Minnesota Nice. Living up to it may prove challenging for Super Bowl volunteers and Minneapolis residents in general in the face of the Philly invasion. As one wrote online: "I live extremely close to the stadium and I am dreading these [jerks] coming to my town."
Of course, Philly fans have no monopoly on sports-fuelled mayhem (think Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal …); nor are the rowdies in the majority. Many Philadelphians can't abide them either. Certainly police – who were breaking up a brawl outside Lincoln Financial Field when the equine bashing occurred – know the routine. They even greased city light poles with Crisco before the Eagles-Vikings game, but some fans slithered up anyway. ("Philly enjoyed two victories last night," one tweeter wrote, "against the Vikings and against vegetable oil.")
That's the line right there, where incorrigible turns cute. What was the harm in one celebrant driving his dune buggy up the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum – the iconic "Rocky steps" of moviedom?
No harm, but the bad rep travels. What accounts for the Philly nasty streak? Who can plumb the psyche of a city that booed the Phillies' superb Mike Schmidt, now a baseball Hall of Famer?
Some local sports writers trace the bile back to 1964, when the Phillies famously blew a seemingly insurmountable lead in the National League. The historic slide did collective brain damage, this theory goes, causing fans to lash out whenever disappointment looms.
I'll pit my '64 scars against anyone's – I was a kid and the collapse damn near killed me – but the rancour was there all along. I recall, when my father took me to games several years earlier, the way leather-lunged blowhards harangued the hapless Phils for the full nine innings, aided by a bit of Ballantine.
Bad teams, bad owners – and a built-in inferiority complex, says my sports-savvy friend Tom Fink, another member of the Philly Diaspora. That's because of its proximity to New York, just 145 kilometres up the New Jersey Turnpike but in another world in terms of money and media clout. Naturally, Philly loves underdogs (think Rocky), but a little winning never hurts (see Rocky II).
Whatever its origins, the fans' ill-temper has become something of a shtick, a civic identifier like cheesesteaks.
Philly's foes on Sunday, the Patriots, have their own image problem. While the Eagles are seeking their first Super Bowl title, the Pats are pursuing their third in the past four years – an extraordinary feat that has won them admirers and haters both. Their record of rule-bending hasn't helped, whether videotaping opposing coaches (Spygate) or under-inflating footballs (Deflategate). Nor has the fact that the Pats owner is a close friend of Donald Trump, or that their quarterback, Tom Brady, is rich, handsome, successful and married to a supermodel. Patriots fans seem smug, like those of the New York Yankees.
Thus Super Bowl LII – the showcase for America's most popular sport and this year a showdown between clashing cultures, the upstart and the entitled. It will be up to those nice Minnesotans to calm the Philly and New England contingents gathered in their fixed-roof facility and keep the focus on football.
But Vikings backers haven't forgotten their rude reception in Philadelphia. On social media, a few have urged local residents to work as Uber drivers – and take visiting Philly fans on rides to nowhere.