GAME THREAD: Steelers v Panthers: Sat 30th

[Daniel14]

Result and performance aside it’s baffling to me how Steelers still get it so wrong on this. Obviously you can’t necessarily predict a few idiots getting aggressive but comparing the arena to Nottingham on match night is night and day. There’s a steward on every block telling people when they can and can’t move and it works every time. It’s been an issue in Sheffield for a long time now and it was a matter of time before there were scenes like tonight over it


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[Brian]

There was a reminder over the tannoy by Simmsy tonight. But if you,'ve already had 8 pints I don't suppose it registers. Success has expanded the fan base but I suspect some are football supporters who are never asked to sit down during play . I have noticed more swearing around this season too. Common at football but all this doesn't help our image of a family sport .
I wouldn't have wanted my small kids to have seen grown men fighting . It was so visible even the players stopped and watched ! The fight seemed over when the lady fell backwards onto the stairs. Not sure what caused that but it looked awful.
I hope she is ok .

[Jayboy]

The thing is, the stewards 100% knew of the problem, one fan reported the whole sorry lot of them early in the second period, I know this because we was tab hanging the whole conversation, stood directly below our block under the railings (well Mel was, I am deaf as a post) ( I've just learned the entire conversation from Mel)

The fan was describing how it was mostly alcohol fueled aggressive behaviour and how it was all going to kick off..
The steward, a purple coat version, was basically doing nothing about it at all, even though, the fan repeatedly complained about the foul language and some of it aimed as women and kids. At one point the steward was heard saying there is not a great deal they can do once they had been asked to calm down and the fan himself was getting frustrated by the stewards lack of empathy or response, about 5 mins later Simms did a lengthy tanoy announcement about standing up during live play and only going to concourse during intervals in play...
That's when we all heard the sarcastic applause apparently from block 218

It seems all this was avoidable if only the Stewards had done their job correctly!

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[Clowne57]

The whole incident in block 217 is an absolute disgrace. Steeler fans already struggle with some other fan bases perception of us, this drags us all through the mud. I can’t imagine what the players on both teams thought.
There should be zero tolerance for this type of behaviour and as others have said the Nottingham example of managing the movement of the crowd needs to be adopted.
Unfortunately the bottom line will be the cost of employing suitable staff and training them so they feel empowered to deal with such incidents will mean it will never happen.

[Jayboy]

I know the lady personally but won't name her obviously, but if she feels the arena are in any way culpable and failed to keep her safe by not following their own rules and guidelines and decided on some form of legal action against the arena, the brown stuff may hit the fan then... And who could blame her...

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[KAR]

Honestly, I’m fed up of speculation and guessing, I honestly don’t understand why the club won’t just issue injury updates. It’s embarrassing that we don’t know the scale of the situation.

[Daniel14]

Right now I feel this is more important than tonight’s performance. We need action form the steelers over this and if 2 lads have been fighting they need banning from games. We cannot let this sort of behaviour become commonplace as it is in football.

At what point do we stop blaming this on football? The idiots in question should obviously be banned but I watch both sports live regularly and I’ve seen far more altercations between fans at the arena than at the football. Drink is obviously the main factor and I do think they should have more authority to police how much people are drinking and not serve people who are clearly drunk. Nothing at all against having a couple of drinks watching the game but if people want to get hammered, go to town not the hockey. The majority of the blame lies with the arena staff who are clearly incapable of stewarding the games properly but that’s not really within control of the club but as someone who isn’t a regular in one particular block when I go to the arena it feels far less welcoming if you’re not part of the “in group” than any football game I’ve ever been to.

Hope the lady is alright and those responsible face repercussions.

As for the game just hope we can bounce back tonight and stop the rot because it was another very lacklustre performance all round


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[Bryan]

I too watch and support football. To suggest I blamed it is just ridiculous. We all know that poor behaviour associated with drinking is commonplace around and in football grounds. We don’t want that in hockey thank you.

[smbmetal]

There was a reminder over the tannoy by Simmsy tonight. But if you,'ve already had 8 pints I don't suppose it registers. Success has expanded the fan base but I suspect some are football supporters who are never asked to sit down during play . I have noticed more swearing around this season too. Common at football but all this doesn't help our image of a family sport .
I wouldn't have wanted my small kids to have seen grown men fighting . It was so visible even the players stopped and watched ! The fight seemed over when the lady fell backwards onto the stairs. Not sure what caused that but it looked awful.
I hope she is ok .

I did notice how much the aggressive behaviour had gone up when I went to the Berlin CHL game. Out of interest those who were behaving aggressively didn’t have Steeler shirts on.

Now that this incident has happened which was in the same block I sat in, I wonder if it’s just a matter of time before we see some Police presence on the concourse?

I would have thought this incident will have been reported to the Police?

[Clowne57]

Although what happens in the arena crowd wise is to do with Sheffield International Venues I guess, could the club be fined by the Elite League for crowd behaviour disrupting the game?
The club need to issue some comment even if its just an ‘ongoing investigation’ in to what happened.
Given the air time the club has had recently it could make the local TV news. Not the publicity we want.