Crowd chants at sporting events are pretty ubiquitous at this point, enough so that you don’t even realize they are going on half the time when you are watching a game on TV. At 1 time, crowd chants actually seemed to mean something. I remember watching old Bulls-Knicks games as a kid, and when the Madison Square Garden crowd would belt out “Defense!” in unison during critical New York defensive possessions it felt as if the jumbotron atop the arena could come crashing down on the court at any time. In that same light, the 1st time I heard a crowd chant “bulls***” at the officials after a blown call, I legitimately thought there might be a fan riot.
Now, almost all sports crowd chants are completly lame and derivative. For example, every NBA crowd chants “M-V-P” when their star is at the free throw line, whether he is a legitimate candidate for that award or a fringe All-Star. Rajon Rondo is a great player, but I almost lost my mind when the Boston crowd gave him the MVP chant this postseason. (I have since softened my stance on this 1…Boston’s crowds are usually pretty smart and savvy when it comes to this stuff, and this may have served as a subtle jab at LeBron as much as a tribute to Rondo during the Boston-Miami series. Because of that, Celtics fans get a pass here.) There are other mainstays in every building like the “Let’s go, Celtics, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap” chant. “Let’s go, Cel-tics” can be replaced by just about any other 4 syllable phrase here too (“Ty-son Chand-ler, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap” or Duke fans chanting “Co-dy’s bet-ter” at Tyler Zeller, referencing Tyler’s younger brother, Cody). If it were up to me, all chants that use the 4 syllable phrase followed by 5 claps formula would be outlawed today. The 1 time I remember hearing it recently that was kind of cool was, ironically, also in Boston, where C’s fans chanted “Let’s go, Celtics” during the closing moments of game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals against Miami when Boston was trailing by what seemed like 50 points. Game 7 had yet to be played, so the Celtics were still alive at the time, but it was like Boston fans somehow knew it would be their last chance of the year (and maybe ever) to say goodbye to the team as currently constructed.
So when the Miami crowd started to chant the Kanye West song “Power” during the closing minute of their Finals clinching win over the Thunder it had a chance to be a cool moment as well. Crowd singalongs have become popular in recent years. For example, it seems like every college basketball arena in the country plays and hums along with either The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” or the jock jams classic “Zombie Nation” at a certain break in the game. While it usually goes unnoticed, “Power” has become a staple of Heat wins as the clock winds under a minute to play in the game. While it wasn’t exactly the old Boston Garden ominously chanting “Beat LA” to the Sixers at the end of the ’82 Eastern Conference Finals, it had some serious goose bump potential. It was like the official signal that the Miami Heat block party was about to begin…until James Jones, mop that he is, shot a corner 3 that bounced off the top of the backboard. The often maligned Miami crowd’s chant died out within a second or 2 following Jones’ brick. I will give them a B- for effort at least…some plays you can’t chant through no matter how hard you try though.
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