Canucks Fans and Battered Wife Syndrome: A Long, Hard Summer

In a college newspaper several years ago, a good friend of mine wrote an article which drew a parallel between Canucks fans and battered wives. While crude and wildly insensitive to the plight of battered women worldwide, the content of the article has always stuck with me, ringing in my ears at the end of each disappointing season. I won’t plagarise my friend’s article too much here, but basically the article posited that the relationship between the abused woman and her abuser was in many ways identical to that of this team and its fans. For example, after an incident of abuse, the abuser will show up with a fresh bouquet of flowers, apologize and make all the necessary promises to re-ingratiate himself to his partner.  “It won’t happen again! I can change, I swear!” he cries. The abused party, despite years of evidence to the contrary,  and defying all logic, decides to believe the pack of lies, and does all she can to forgive and forget. She even makes excuses for her spou...