Last Wednesday, I was lucky enough to attend a Rangers vs. Penguins hockey game at the renowned Madison Square Garden. Jerseys, hats, and merchandise filled the arena in a sea of blue, as fans poured into the arena. As my beloved Rangers started to fall behind to the Penguins, (in an eventual 6-1 drubbing) I started to exercise my sociological imagination, wondering how these disparate 18,000+ individuals came together to witness a mundane hockey game, and in essence create a social structure like no other.
The first sociological term that sprung to mind when pondering this mystery of sports fans is the idea of a subculture present between fans of similar teams. A subculture is defined as a distinguishable group that shares a number of features with the dominant culture within which it exists while also having unique features such as language, customs, or values.…