I’m a Brit and the whole ‘relocation’ thing has always been a bit fascinating to me. Totally understand why teams move, and I totally understand why fans hate it, but I’ve never really been sure on what the etiquette is for fans of teams who have moved on.
I moved and I still support my old team (Sharks). Though with my team being a basement team, I have been rooting for the closest team to me (Stars).
If the Sharks moved from San Jose… I’m not sure. The whole team is completely different than just a couple of years ago anyway. I still feel like San Jose is “home” to me. It depends on where they moved to. If they moved to Houston, I would be fully on board. They would (barely) be the closest team to me anyway, as I live about halfway between Dallas and Houston. But if they moved to like Salt Lake City or Quebec? Idk. I can’t say for sure. It would certainly be devastating, and I would need to do some self-reflecting to know for sure. I might just jump over to the Stars full time.
If you’re Canadian, we get angry and petition/speculate/complain endlessly about bringing back our team until it happens.
Interesting aside to this is what happens if a team moves into your city and you’re already an established fan of another team.
I imagine I’d maintain my support of OG team, but ultimately end up splitting my allegiances across the two as I ultimately end up seeing games in person rather than on TV.
We don’t really do the ‘multi-team’ thing in the UK.
It already happened once in my life with the Winnipeg Jets, and granted I was 8 years old, but no I didn’t keep cheering for the Phoenix Coyotes, though I know people who did. It would definitely be a mix, and I think most people would pick a different team, but I’m not sure what the proportion would be. Even in hockey, a team moving is pretty rare.
