By Jill Slater

Regina fan questions limit for rowdiness at Rider games

Sep 24, 2014 | 7:58 AM

The behaviour of some rowdy fans at Sunday’s Saskatchewan Roughrider game has at least one Regina football fan wondering what exactly it takes to get tossed from Taylor Field.

“Truth be told, I’m a 28-year-old guy and I have no problem being at a football game, or other social events where the liquor is flowing and people are having a good time, but what I saw sitting in the end zone—the non-university section of the end zone—was, I guess, nothing short of a gong show,” said Mike, who didn’t want his last name used. “It was worse than what you’d see in any nightclub on a Saturday night.”

Mike says families with small children were sitting in the rows in front of him and behind him was a group of women in their 20s.

“When they first got there they were screaming, and stumbling and dropping drinks,” he said.

As the game continued, the behaviour progressed. At one point, he says a senior citizen asked the women to watch their language. Mike said the women left for a bit after that, but then returned and got into a confrontation with the man.

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“They were yelling at him, they were yelling out loud that they were nurses—a group of nurses and, you know, if he dropped dead of a heart attack, they’d tell him to go ‘blank’ himself,” he said.

Mike says he would expect a certain level of rowdiness from fans, but says this situation was out of control, adding that had the women been at a nightclub, they would likely have been kicked out. He says, it was all the worse because it happened in front of children.

“I was within inches of turning around to these people and giving the ‘what for.’ The only reason I didn’t was because I didn’t want to get into an altercation in front of those kids. But to look at little seven and eight-year-old little girls and boys looking up and scrunching up their faces and looking pretty much horrified about what was going on, it was just ridiculous.”

Security was standing nearby, according to Mike, but he says the officers didn’t do anything about the scene.

“Unless they were deaf, they absolutely had to have heard it. You know they’d look up and glance and that was about it,” said Mike.

The Riders organization has enhanced its security this year. There is a new text option where people can alert security to problems, and the team plays videos encouraging fans to be respectful to each other, reminding them that the next generation of Rider fans are all around.

“Our number one priority has to be fan safety and fan experience so, I’m pleased to see that we are dealing with issues,” Riders President Jim Hopson told reporters earlier this season.

The Roughriders organization declined an interview with CJME on this instance, but did direct us to its Fan Code of Conduct.

The code of conduct outlines the organization’s expectations of people attending games.

The Riders say there are no hard and fast rules for getting kicked out, rather that it’s up to security guards to use their discretion. 

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