A tongue-in-cheek bill was passed here recently which says that any­one wear­ing a Leafs jer­sey at a Sens game will be asked to donate to the local food bank. The city was orig­i­nally dis­cussing a com­plete ban on Leafs jer­seys at the games, but some­one must have real­ized how idi­otic that would have been. Supposedly, the bill was passed to show that the city is 100% behind their local team, although it was more to curb the num­ber of Leaf fans, which dwarf the num­ber of Sens fans, at the Corel Centre.

I think the entire idea is in poor taste and com­pletely unsports­man­like. If some­thing like this must be done, then I whole­heart­edly sup­port the fact that a char­ity is being ben­e­fited. However, putting a con­strain on the sup­port­ers of the oppos­ing team is as imma­ture as boo­ing them. Imagine this being done at a lit­tle league game, where the par­ents wear­ing the jer­sey of their kids teams are asked to donate money to the league. I believe that one should never, ever, do any­thing neg­a­tive towards an oppos­ing team, no mat­ter what the oppos­ing may be doing. The only hockey that I fol­low is the Leafs-Sens rivalry, and even though I’m a Leafs fan, I don’t go around say­ing that the Sens suck (and shame on the Leafs fans who do), I just say “GO LEAFS”. Which brings me to my next point, where shirts are on dis­play at the front of stores here, sim­ply say­ing in a large font, “LEAFS SUCK”. Do the Senators con­done this? Do peo­ple think that the Sens would be happy that peo­ple are walk­ing around with these child­ish shirts? Have the Ottawa fans become so inse­cure about their team that they have to lash out like this?

Are my tax dol­lars going to peo­ple who sit around and come up with shit like this “char­ity bill”?