Superstitious fan Tyler Swar of Winnipeg has turned his basement into a shrine to the NHL’s Jets.Shannon VanRaes/The Globe and Mail
Tyler Swar’s Winnipeg Jets Blake Wheeler jersey might be out of step with the current NHL club’s lineup. Yet Swar, a 35-year-old Winnipegger and self-professed superfan, isn’t going to break with longstanding tradition.
Even though Wheeler played last year for the New York Rangers, Swar’s connection to the jersey goes beyond admiration for the Jets’ revered former captain. He views the jersey as a talisman of good fortune, along with his grubby old Jets baseball cap and a pair of Jets socks. The lucky footwear stay in his dresser drawer for the regular season, lest an early appearance jeopardize the Jets’ chances: “I will wear those for as long as the Jets are in the playoffs.” The 2018 playoffs, when the Jets made it to the Western Conference final, was a particularly pungent year, he admits.
Swar has a few other game-day rituals, like touching the foot of the bronze Timothy Eaton statue in the concourse of Canada Life Centre where the Jets play (the former location of an Eaton’s department store). “And I wouldn’t call it a Winnipeg Jets game if I didn’t visit my beer guy, whether or not I am grabbing beers.”
He’s not alone. One survey found that 63 per cent who have game-day rituals think their team will lose if they don’t complete them. Another survey of North American fans revealed that the most common superstition is wearing team colours, with others listed ranging from rubbing a lucky token to watching the game in a specific place.
Such rituals are global. A U.K. survey found that common pregame rituals include eating the same meal and avoiding watching with “unlucky” people.
These kinds of superstitions are legion among sports fans even though most, Swar included, know they have no bearing on the outcome of a game.
One reason these beliefs persist despite us knowing better is that they serve a deeper purpose, says Dr. Stuart Vyse, a psychologist based in Connecticut and the author of Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition. He says superstitions allow people to feel they have some sway over events that they have little to no influence over in actuality. That’s ideal for nervous sports fans, he says.
“The irrationality of the strategy isn’t really a hindrance. You’re doing something that at least gives you the feeling that you’re in control.”
Dr. Jeffrey S. Debies-Carl, a professor of sociology at the University of New Haven, also in Connecticut, says sports fans are in good company. “Basically, if you’re capable of thinking, you’re capable of superstition. It’s really innate to the species – and it’s not even unique to our species.”
He points to research by noted behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner with pigeons. In experiments, cooped pigeons were periodically fed through a dispenser. The birds often tried different actions to get the food released.”
At some point, the pigeon would do something that corresponds with the food being released, and formed an erroneous connection between its behaviour and the food being dispensed,” Debies-Carl says.
That’s not unlike how sports fans and other humans buy into superstitions. “We’re all pattern seeking as part of our efforts to understand the environment and to have an impact on it,” he explains.
With superstitions, those patterns, or connections, are generally incorrect. But once the link is made, we tend to hold onto it even when rationally we know it can’t be true, he adds.
Superstitions and rituals are often about more than control for fans. “These also offer an additional sense of bonding with the team and other fans,” Vyse says. “And the act of performing the ritual simply feels good.”
Indeed, Swar’s lucky Jets wear and game-day rituals give him an emotional bump. “The idea of a team winning because of my rituals is a long-shot, I know, but I still find them comforting.”