Stepping back from sports fandom

[Coconuts]

Wasn't too sure where to put this so off-topic it goes. 

 

Obviously this is a Canucks forum so we're all sports fans here on some level, but I've been pondering the other side of deeply invested fandom for a while now. The taking steps back, the not following it as closely, the not reading, investing in, or watching as much. Or the simply giving the up hockey or sports bits. I've had friends who used to be hardcore Canucks fans step back to following it more casually, I've had other friends who've just given up the sport or other sports entirely. I'm curious as to what people's experiences here have been regarding this subject, not just strictly with hockey but with sports fandom in general. 

 

I've been thinking about it for a month or so now as I've spent a lottt of time here, other forums, and either glued to my phone, laptop, or TV consuming hockey content over the years. I'm questioning the time investment, particularly with my beginning my bachelors of social work in September. It doesn't really have anything to do with the team, the players, the direction, or any of that so much as the return on the time I've been putting in. And it's been a lottttt of time between the reading and discussion. Within the last couple months I gave up a hobby that I'd spent at least a little bit of time on every day for at least the last five years, it was a mobile game that'll end in September, but breaking the consumption habit was a lot easier than I thought it'd be and now I've turned my eyes to hockey because that's something I've put even more time into. 

 

I haven't been round the last week, I've just casually peeked at reddit now and again to see what's going on around the league and I've enjoyed it. I wasn't sure I'd come back. Still haven't decided. Take me back a couple years and I'd never have considered it, but the reality is I go down rabbit holes and lose chunks of time before I realize how much I've lost on a regular basis. So yeah, I dunno. I enjoy hockey, I enjoy engaging with Canucks content, but maybe I'd enjoy investing that time elsewhere more. 

 

Surely some of you think about and experience this as well? 

[King Heffy]

Pretty much stopped watching during the Messier era, but that was as a kid.  Having multiple different things you like doing is good for you.

[The Arrogant Worms]

Not me. I love watching sports....well Canucks...Lions and Seahawks.....the occasional Jays game.  Usually PVR them if I am not around.

 

I come here to read the latest news....post and listen to music that other's post...

 

..this place and Sportsnet.

 

But in my defence I have had my career and raised a family.

 

But I understand where you are coming from.

Edited August 18, 2022 by The Arrogant Worms

[kanucks25]

Moderation, of course.

 

I don't think you should feel bad about enjoying something as long as it's not detrimental to the other/more important aspects of your life.

 

At the same time, perhaps you need to give time to other things to see if you enjoy them more, or enjoy everything a little bit more just because you've given yourself variety.

 

Good luck

[JM_]

Time here is supposed to be fun. If it isn't anymore or its costing you in other ways, you should look after yourself. And its not going anywhere, its here for you to check in on.

[6of1_halfdozenofother]

Been there, experienced that.  Actually still practicing it in some form, but (obviously) not with this site at present.

 

I used to be a major contributor on another forum completely unrelated to hockey, but was noticing that it was a major time suck.  I got married, and was finding that time was scarce to do all the things I wanted to, so I ended up scaling back my involvement with that site (oddly enough, it meant more quality time here, if such a thing as quality time here could exist).  I'm now on a one-year hiatus from that site.

 

At the end of the day, you need to figure out what you want your priorities to be, what benefit you feel you can gain from them, and how you correspondingly want to allocate your time.  It's ok to set aside sports and entertainment for other goals, such as academic, financial, or emotional - life is always about some give and take.

 

Coming back to sports, I used to follow tennis, racing (F1/Indy), and one or two others in addition to hockey.  Nowadays, I'll catch the highlights on the 6 o'clock news or when I'm surfing, but I no longer follow them as closely as I used to, and it's because there's other things in my life that I hold as higher priority than those sports.  

 

Good luck with your studies.  Social work is an important program that many people depend on; I have nothing but respect for people who seek to help others they don't know through their difficult times.

[nopROBlemo]

The Canucks are the only sports team I follow. For about five years or so ago I came to the same conclusion about stepping back a bit. Sports in general has become way to business like. There's almost to much contract talk. Players and owners are getting to greedy in my opinion. 

I still follow the going ons and really like this fan forum. 

[Nuxfanabroad]

For me personally, it's a connection/link to earliest memories, & growing up in the Lower Rainland back in the 1970's.

 

Living in Asia, it's far easier to forego the NA'n sports-obsession, & get into other things. Wife & I had young kids to raise, our Kid's English school, & with time left I could train for long triathlons. So I decided the NHL was the only pro sports league I'd keep tabs on.

 

I've never watched an NBA game, & the other 2 big yank sports I stopped watching back in the early 90's. Wish I'd done this 10 yrs sooner! The amount of $ involved is criminal.

[Gurn]

As the pandemic wains, the desire to resume all the stuff we couldn't do, rises back towards the top.

It can be good to take a step back, especially if a team loss ruins your day, or a team win; (play off games exempt) makes your day.

 

Will add this is basically the only forum/site I read and post on, so it isn't just about stepping back on sports, but the off topic stuff as well.

 

Personally I've  been staying home a lot- even post? covid; as I wanted to save as much as possible and pay off my mortgage. Since that should been done by Sept 6 of this year; I will begin looking into the following, rather than being  online at CDC.

 

Form an over the board chess club, instead of online.

Join the local martial arts club

square dancing

More swims/laps

maybe a part time job

Volunteer gig-probably within the special needs community.

 

[6of1_halfdozenofother]

10 minutes ago, Nuxfanabroad said:

For me personally, it's a connection/link to earliest memories, & growing up in the Lower Rainland back in the 1970's.

 

Living in Asia, it's far easier to forego the NA'n sports-obsession, & get into other things. Wife & I had young kids to raise, our Kid's English school, & with time left I could train for long triathlons. So I decided the NHL was the only pro sports league I'd keep tabs on.

 

I've never watched an NBA game, & the other 2 big yank sports I stopped watching back in the early 90's. Wish I'd done this 10 yrs sooner! The amount of $ involved is criminal.

My dad was a big fan of NFL for a lot of years, and also watched a lot of CFL.  I don't think I have quite the level of patience to watch American-style football, too many starts and stops.  I fall asleep watching baseball.  

[-AJ-]

I definitely watch far fewer games when times are tough, though I have to admit CDC is pretty much a mainstay. That said, when we're losing a lot and negativity reigns supreme, I distance myself from hockey-related talk. I either get angry myself or jealous of the success of other teams and find that it's not healthy for me.

 

Regarding taking a break altogether, I haven't done it strictly with hockey, but I have done a similar thing with watching YouTube videos. I used to be subscribed to several YouTube channels that put out a couple videos each day and began to find it incredibly draining to watch their content, even though I enjoyed it at first. It became a chore, another task to complete. I ended up cutting out a lot of YouTube from my life and although I now still watch quite a bit, I'm more disciplined about making sure I only subscribe to channels that infrequently put out content and I manage how many videos I want to watch.

 

The closest I've come to this with hockey outside of the darker times of 2015 through 2018 or so was during the 2011 playoffs. During that run, I realized that my emotions were so severely affected by the outcome of the games (especially in the Finals) that it worried me. Should I be invested so deeply in something that has little to do with my life directly, yet also controls my emotions so heavily?

 

Honestly, I'm not sure what I concluded after that, but suffice it to say that in tense moments during games, I try to remind myself of the perspective I gained in that time and not lose sight of the fact that, while I'm passionate and care deeply about how my Canucks perform, there are many things more important in life and the results of the game are not life and death.

[Angry Goose]

With you starting your social work degree soon Im sure that will be what you mainly invest your time in.  Maybe its just what you needed in a way.  When you do have more time to invest into say the Canucks, it might be more about quality rather than quantity.

 

My sports fandom/other interests fluctuate as well.  I suffered a bad back injury and am just now finally getting to the point where I can safely pursue power lifting again.  Ill invest more time into that and say maybe a bit less in other things (like video games ). 

[Rindiculous]

1 hour ago, JM_ said:

Time here is supposed to be fun. If it isn't anymore or its costing you in other ways, you should look after yourself. And its not going anywhere, its here for you to check in on.

I agree.  I've done that before where I kept watching when it wasn't fun anymore (was at a worse point in my life late 2017-2018ish where combined with the Canucks and Roughriders sucking let a little depression sink in).  I'm a lot better with that now.  For example, I was super hyped for the previous season because I saw the additions, and really thought that this team couldn't be much better constructed.  We had great forwards, and underrated D core, and a top 5 goalie.  When we started off so bad I watched the first 10 or so games of the season, but then when I saw that it didn't really pan out, instead of getting aggressively more restless, I just stopped following for awhile.  I actually caught the two wins before Green got fired, but when Bruce got hired, I got into following and watching again and watched almost every single game the rest of the season.  I used to yell at the TV a lot previously because the Canucks system broke down, we're getting stoned by a hot goalie, or the refs.  Now I only vent my frustration on CDC .

 

For me the only team I'm a hardcore fan of is the Canucks.  I was a casual fan of many sports growing up like the Canucks, Roughriders and to lesser degree Lions, Seahawks, Blue Jays, Milos Raonic in tennis etc.  Of course I was super invested in the Canucks back when they were good from 2007-2013, however I never paid attention to transactions, coaching, players at the time.  It was only the team.  My casual fandom turned into hardcore fandom for the Canucks in 2015 when I discovered CDC during the run to the playoffs that year.  From then on I spent a lot of time on here, reading articles, listening to the radio and podcasts etc. until this day.  Besides my dad, I've never really had any friends invested in professional sports except for one friend who is only a casual Canucks fan.  It's probably the reason why I am on here so much during the season because there are so many more people to talk about all the nitty, gritty details of the Canucks and who know the scope of the team better than anyone else I know in real life.  My dad used to be a hardcore Canucks fan, but since 2013 has taken a step back and been more casual.  He used to know every player in the league since he was a kid himself, but today besides Canucks players, he barely knows anyone else in the league who came in since 2013 like Jonathan Huberdeau, Kirill Kaprizov, or Sebastian Aho.  It's kind of sad for me because he became a casual fan at about the same time I became a hardcore fan so while I'd like to talk to him about a lot of interesting stuff hockey, because he doesn't know as much about the current game anymore, it's hard for him to know how big some transactions are like the blockbuster that happened this summer.

 

For some reason I graduated for a casual to a hardcore fan of the Canucks right as they were heading into a deep rebuild.  I'm not sure I could do that again.  If I see the Canucks are actively tanking at some point in the future, I'm not going to invest long portions of my life into being a hardcore Canucks fan.  I'd probably still keep up with them and get notifications on my phone of the results of their games, but I don't think I could watch every game just to see them lose every night.  I have so much more going on in my life right now that I wouldn't be able to deal with that sort of commitment for bad results.

 

Anyway, sports life story over lol.

[JM_]

38 minutes ago, Rindiculous said:

I agree.  I've done that before where I kept watching when it wasn't fun anymore (was at a worse point in my life late 2017-2018ish where combined with the Canucks and Roughriders sucking let a little depression sink in).  I'm a lot better with that now.  For example, I was super hyped for the previous season because I saw the additions, and really thought that this team couldn't be much better constructed.  We had great forwards, and underrated D core, and a top 5 goalie.  When we started off so bad I watched the first 10 or so games of the season, but then when I saw that it didn't really pan out, instead of getting aggressively more restless, I just stopped following for awhile.  I actually caught the two wins before Green got fired, but when Bruce got hired, I got into following and watching again and watched almost every single game the rest of the season.  I used to yell at the TV a lot previously because the Canucks system broke down, we're getting stoned by a hot goalie, or the refs.  Now I only vent my frustration on CDC .

 

For me the only team I'm a hardcore fan of is the Canucks.  I was a casual fan of many sports growing up like the Canucks, Roughriders and to lesser degree Lions, Seahawks, Blue Jays, Milos Raonic in tennis etc.  Of course I was super invested in the Canucks back when they were good from 2007-2013, however I never paid attention to transactions, coaching, players at the time.  It was only the team.  My casual fandom turned into hardcore fandom for the Canucks in 2015 when I discovered CDC during the run to the playoffs that year.  From then on I spent a lot of time on here, reading articles, listening to the radio and podcasts etc. until this day.  Besides my dad, I've never really had any friends invested in professional sports except for one friend who is only a casual Canucks fan.  It's probably the reason why I am on here so much during the season because there are so many more people to talk about all the nitty, gritty details of the Canucks and who know the scope of the team better than anyone else I know in real life.  My dad used to be a hardcore Canucks fan, but since 2013 has taken a step back and been more casual.  He used to know every player in the league since he was a kid himself, but today besides Canucks players, he barely knows anyone else in the league who came in since 2013 like Jonathan Huberdeau, Kirill Kaprizov, or Sebastian Aho.  It's kind of sad for me because he became a casual fan at about the same time I became a hardcore fan so while I'd like to talk to him about a lot of interesting stuff hockey, because he doesn't know as much about the current game anymore, it's hard for him to know how big some transactions are like the blockbuster that happened this summer.

 

For some reason I graduated for a casual to a hardcore fan of the Canucks right as they were heading into a deep rebuild.  I'm not sure I could do that again.  If I see the Canucks are actively tanking at some point in the future, I'm not going to invest long portions of my life into being a hardcore Canucks fan.  I'd probably still keep up with them and get notifications on my phone of the results of their games, but I don't think I could watch every game just to see them lose every night.  I have so much more going on in my life right now that I wouldn't be able to deal with that sort of commitment for bad results.

 

Anyway, sports life story over lol.

Once a riders fan always a riders fan, I'm one too. 

 

I was really turned off baseball after the whole juicing scandal, didn't watch any for years but now I'm back watching regularly again because my wife got into it, so its fun watching her learn the game, so that has brought be back to that sport. Plus it makes me feel smart when my wife has to ask me stuff.

 

Canucks stuff can get over the top. I've had to stay out of the game day threads, e.g., because it was just getting to be a constant complaint fest in there, or at least thats how I was experiencing it. 

 

Other conversations in here can get a little intense and I'm certainly guilty of pushing conversations too far, so maybe I need a break here too 

 

Once it becomes un-fun thats when I'll pull the plug on it. 

 

[Ghostsof1915]

I enjoy sports. But I think money has ruined a lot of it for me. The political issues in the US has me turned off of the NFL. Also seeing NFL'ers breaking the law, committing assault, and generally behaving badly. It makes me wonder how much is brain trauma/concussions? The level of greed even in College Football seeing teams jump to super conferences, and throwing any kind of tradition out the window to make more money is sad.

 

I enjoy Hockey and Rugby. I appreciate the effort CFL'ers put into the sport seeing the huge gap in pay between the NFL and CFL.

I enjoy sports to see human accomplishment. Not be reminded how lousy the world can be.

 

I used to like baseball, but the constant shoving the Blue Jays in my face by the Toronto media makes me hate that team now. Despite guys like Vladdy Jr.

I'd rather go to Nat Bailey and just enjoy a Canadians game on a nice summer afternoon.

 

Since the Grizzlies left town and the league didn't even utter a word of protest. The NBA is dead to me. I enjoy college basketball better.

 

Pretty much the Canucks is all I follow with more than a passing interest. But even then this board can get pretty snarky at times. I get it, everyone is a GM.

 

I'm just more of a wait and see kind of person, rather than a OMG freak out on social media type person.

[brilac]

3 hours ago, King Heffy said:

Pretty much stopped watching during the Messier era, but that was as a kid.  Having multiple different things you like doing is good for you.

I agree with King Heffy with having multiple different things. 

 

I enjoy doing multiple different things such as going on nature walks and the beach, watching the Habs play during hockey season, watching the Bachelor/Bachelorette (there's two bachelorettes this season BTW), listening to music, going places, and so on. I also like fashion, so I get a kick out of designer and fashionable things, but lately, I have been frugal, so fashionable things have not been bought in a long time. I also get a thrill out of making my monthly budget and saving money! 

[Tinky-Winky]

I watch all sports, from baseball, hockey , football, NRL , tennis and so on , onlything i watch on tv is sports otherwise tv off if no sports

[Rubik]

5 hours ago, JM_ said:

Time here is supposed to be fun. If it isn't anymore or its costing you in other ways, you should look after yourself. And its not going anywhere, its here for you to check in on.

this

[lmm]

4 hours ago, gurn said:

As the pandemic wains, the desire to resume all the stuff we couldn't do, rises back towards the top.

It can be good to take a step back, especially if a team loss ruins your day, or a team win; (play off games exempt) makes your day.

 

Will add this is basically the only forum/site I read and post on, so it isn't just about stepping back on sports, but the off topic stuff as well.

 

Personally I've  been staying home a lot- even post? covid; as I wanted to save as much as possible and pay off my mortgage. Since that should been done by Sept 6 of this year; I will begin looking into the following, rather than being  online at CDC.

 

Form an over the board chess club, instead of online.

Join the local martial arts club

square dancing

More swims/laps

maybe a part time job

Volunteer gig-probably within the special needs community.

 

you square dance?

what club do you dance with?

I'm a Maverick in Victoria

[Gnarcore]

Other than Canucks I have stepped away from much of the sports I used to watch. I was huge in MMA wagering from early 2000s to like 2012. As all the fighters I knew and loved have gone into retirement I find I hardly care. With the Canucks at over 40 years of age...I am committed but I am not one to be on forums all the time for it nor stuck to phone except on the big days