At the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam there is a room that's set up to show videos of situations where freedom of speech becomes an issue and then you vote on whether you think people should be censored or not in this particular situation. One of the situations was that of soccer hooliganism and whether racial slurs are acceptable forms of speech at a game. The Amsterdam team are nicknamed "Juden" or "Jews" and some opposing fans can get quite anti-Semitic.

I guess my point is that even though violence between players and fans makes the sport much more entertaining that we still have to figure out how to deal (prevent) it from happening.. and so we run into the freedom of speech issue.

I think a huge factor in these kinds of incidents is alcohol. I like to enjoy a couple beers at a game like anyone else, but for many this just adds fuel to a fire. Too often some playful jeering gets wildly out of control and becomes threatening. Hugh can speak from this out of experience when we went to the NHL playoffs last season and he wore a Leafs jersey here in Philly at the Leafs vs. Flyers game. Some people teased a bit and it was all in good fun, but there were multiple instances when the words became threatening. Without 8 beers in their stomachs, I think fans would tend to act a bit more civil.

What I don't understand about last night is how sober professional athletes thought it would be a good idea to jump in to the stands and attack fans. Regardless of how out of hand those fans may have been, there is no excuse for a player to cross that line and exersize no restaint.

I love a little jabbing, and definately expected it when I went to the other teams hometown in the playoffs, but the guy that called a women with her children "a whore" and the two kids "faggots" or something along those lines, went definately too far.
I think it's a shame that the sport, whatever sport it is, can not be sufficient entertainment. I mean if people know or love the sport they are going to see, or hell...even don't know that much and are interested to learn more, that people feel they must drink as though they were at a bar, not a special event. Then there is the respect thing, which human beings in general have a hard time with.

There is of course the exception of your team really sucking.....then It's 'drink-up' time;)

Weird...I totally agree with Ryan. At least on the part about there being no excuse to go into the stands. I was astonished after I saw this incident on the Drudge Report and flipped on ESPN, to see the footage, and then watch an entire panel of sportscasters/columnists go on and on about how the "dispicable fans" needed to be found and punished. There's no doubt that many of those fans behaved innapropriately, but none threw first punches. Artest even clobbered the wrong guy went he first went in! Then his teammate clocked a couple of other fans who were just trying to break things up! I think the suspensions were appropriate and I also think there should be additional battery charges. Fans who threw beer or other objects who can be identified should be banned from the arena for a time by managmement, and the fan who threw the chair should be charged with assault as well.

If I was one of those guys who got clocked you better believe I would be looking forward to a nice payday in court.

I hope the fans press charges. Seriously. Beyond the fact that there totally is no excuse at all to head into the stands ever, the players attacked the fans. The footage is brutal. I love how Artest is saying that they are being too harsh for suspending him for the rest of the season. I think he should be permenantly barred from the NBA. Violently attacking someone in the stands at your game is way, way beyond the pale. The fans should be banned by the stadium, absolutley. People do shit like this because they can get away with it (in addition to having pints of liquid courage).