Steve Dangle’s memoir highlights the meaning of sports fandom
Insights from a Leafs superfan highlight the importance of fandom to student life.
To many sports fans, supporting a team is ingrained into who they are, and no one knows that better than Toronto Maple Leafs superfan Steve “Dangle” Glynn. We all have professional sports teams that we watch and support. We stick with them through their highs and lows, feeling like we share an inseparable bond with them — a bond so close that, at times, it might influence how we feel, how we speak to other people, and even how productive we might be in school. In Dangle’s case, his fandom for the Leafs has transformed into a full-on career.
In 2007, Steve Dangle began a YouTube channel where he discussed hockey and NHL news. This included his most notable series called LFRs (Leaf Fan Reactions), where after every Leafs game he would upload a video recounting the game and giving his thoughts. The series started off small in views, featuring Dangle in his bedroom being filmed with a low-definition camera. However, the series slowly evolved, growing in popularity, and leading to Dangle producing much higher quality videos in his homemade studio. From there, Dangle managed to enter the professional world of sports broadcasting, becoming a well-known figure synonymous with the Leafs.
In 2019, he published a memoir titled: This Team Is Ruining My Life (But I Love Them): How I Became A Professional Hockey Fan. The book recounts Dangle’s story of being a hockey fan and his career in sports broadcasting. Dangle mentions he did not remember how his interest in hockey started, but that his dad once told him, “Our team is the Toronto Maple Leafs,” and from that point on, Dangle knew who to root for.
The memoir explained the two common ways that people become fans. The first is cheering for the team of the city you are from because you feel a natural connection to them. The other one is family influence, which can cause you to support various teams depending on preferences.
Many of us became fans at a young age and learned certain aspects of fandom, such as favorite players, why we root, and dealing with the disappointment of loss. Many of us can especially relate to Dangle’s written experience of dealing with the sting of losses. Readers have likely experienced similar feelings when their own favorite teams underperformed. Like Dangle, they have felt a profound sense of disappointment, despair, and anger, as well as annoyance with the winning team, and these frustrations can boil into other aspects of everyday life.
The memoir also discusses other aspects of Dangle’s life that are relatable to university students. He tells his story of applying to the journalism program at Toronto Metropolitan University, then known as Ryerson. This led to him getting a job and internship with Sportsnet where he got to work with well-known sports analyst, Gino Reda. He also got the chance to cover several famous NHL players who were junior players at the time, like John Tavares and Ryan O’Rielly. This section of the book is likely to resonate with those passionate for any sport as it is a dream come true to find a career in the field as Dangle did.
As a university student, Dangle’s book resonated with me, not only as a sports fan but as a proud Leafs fan. For many students, following sports of all kinds is integral to both personal and academic parts of life. It can help provide relief from the stress of school by partaking in a different kind of event. It can also lead to connections within the sports community, such as when congregations of students of all different backgrounds came together to watch and support their countries during the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
This especially applies for local teams, where students will wear their merch, get together to view games, and actively root them on. The importance of sports in schools is evident in the fact that all levels of schooling have their own teams representing the school. In our case, the UTM Eagles are an example of how we can all unite as one community and cheer for our team. We feel a deep connection to them because the team represents something to us, and by supporting them, we’re supporting the larger UTM community as well.
Dangle’s growth to professional sports analysis, from a humble YouTube channel to a much larger platform, shows just how much his life has been impacted by sports fandom. I, just like Dangle, have a passion for the Toronto Maple Leafs, just as any reader may have for their team. His book shows how the highs and lows of a team can match his own as he had enough passion for them to express them publicly. Dangle’s book is a great reminder of the power sports fandom holds and a great read for all sports fans alike.
Staff Writer (Volume 49 & 50) — Yusuf is in his fourth year completing a double major in English and Cinema Studies and a minor in History of Religions. He first joined The Medium in 2022 when he sought to get involved in the on-campus community. He has developed strong writing skills throughout the experience and enjoys learning about new topics he wouldn’t know about otherwise. You can connect with Yusuf on LinkedIn.