STARS! spangled banner

As an avid Ottawa Senators fan, I obviously had to watch the Sens recent pay-per-view against the Dallas Stars. Though the PPV had it's share of technical difficulties and the quality of the broadcast was certainly not worth the $10.99 we paid, I am glad I watched it.

Sure, the Sens won. Sure, I love watching hockey games. Sure, I am easily satisfied, but there was something that I learned that was really neat. During the singing of the American national anthem, the fans of the Dallas Stars will shout out "STARS!" every time it occurs in the anthem. It's a really neat thing to witness. Admittedly, I do not get to watch the Dallas Stars play too often. They played against teams in Western timezones and are often not available to watch in my area. However, this is the first time that I had heard the fans in Dallas do this. It was a little shocking.

This forces me to think of how this started. I mean, how do 20,000 people just decide to start shouting "Stars!" during the national anthem. It's like starting the "wave". How did this start? I mean, most people will barely clap during hockey games in their corporate seats. At Sens games, there will be some pubescent boys that will normally get up in the middle of the second period to try to get people to do the "wave". They usually fail. The fans KNOW how to do the "wave", but they don't really do it. So, how do you start everyone doing these things without them knowing what you are trying to accomplish?

I guess it's trying to solve the Caramilk mystery. How DO they get the caramel in the Caramilk bar? Nobody should know... just enjoy the mystery.