Towel Power
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Towel Power is an unofficial term used in several sports, predominantly in North America, to describe the waving of towels by fans at stadiums and arenas in order to give a morale boost to the home team.
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[edit] American Football
While the term "Towel Power" originated in Vancouver, the tradition of towel-waving at sports games is said to have begun in Pittsburgh in 1975 when Myron Cope, a color commentator for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL urged Steelers fans to take yellow dish towels to a playoff game against the Baltimore Colts and wave them throughout the game. The stands at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh were filled with yellow towels that day and the Steelers won the game, 28-10. That same playoff season, the Steelers introduced gold towels with the words "Myron Cope's Terrible Towel" written on them in black. The Steelers went on to beat the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl X.
- See also: Terrible Towel
Several other NFL teams have since introduced Touchdown Towels, which are waved by the fans following a touchdown by the home team. These are usually either white or in the home team's primary color.
[edit] Hockey
The introduction of "Towel Power" to the game of ice hockey is claimed by the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL, which began spontaneously, in a fashion unrelated to the advent of the Terrible Towel. During the 1982 playoffs, the Canucks were playing the Chicago Black Hawks when bombastic Vancouver coach Roger Neilson, fed up with the performance of the officials, placed a white towel on the end of a hockey stick and held it up in mock surrender. The Canucks players sitting on the bench followed suit, placing towels on the ends of their sticks until the bench resembled a laundry line. Although the Canucks lost that game, 4-1, Neilson's actions inadvertently began quite a trend as, when the teams returned to Vancouver for the next game, many fans brought white towels to the game and began waving them above their heads. Referred to as "Towel Power" this sparked the Canucks to win the next three games and the series, taking them to the Stanley Cup finals which they eventually lost to the New York Islanders.
Red and blue towels, waved by fans of the Calgary Flames and Toronto Maple Leafs respectively, followed the "Towel Power" trend. For the playoffs, fans of the Anaheim Ducks also wave "Fowl Towels."
[edit] Baseball
The most notable use of towel-waving in baseball has been by the fans of the Minnesota Twins of Major League Baseball, who introduced the Homer Hanky in 1987. The Homer Hanky was officially produced by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and is a handkerchief printed with a baseball-shaped logo during Twins playoff campaigns (and sometimes the following season). The logo is usually red, but was blue in 2003.
- See also: Homer Hanky
