TORONTO – Local man Jerome Dobbins, who has been waiting in line to get into Toronto’s famed Raptors viewing party square since Saturday at 9am, was shocked and quite frankly furious to discover he could watch the game at home if he wanted.
“Are you serious?” shouted Dobbins, half his body already painted red with the words ‘We The Nor’ written on it. “Like in my apartment, with air conditioning and friends and a bathroom that isn’t this thermos I’m holding?”
“I got fired for skipping work today!” he added.
As the Raptors have gone deeper and deeper into the playoffs thousands of die hard fans have taken to watching the games outside Scotiabank Arena, totally unaware that these same games being displayed on the giant screen are also being shown in houses and bars across the city.
“At first we thought ‘no big deal – it’s only a few hundred people.’ But now with 20,000 people outside the arena, and viewing parties from coast to coast its become disturbing apparent that most of the country does not realize they can watch basketball on their own tvs,” said TSN’s Jack Armstrong. “Do they think the Scotiabank Arena screen is showing like a Direct Feed of some kind?”
The lack of knowledge has been costly. Fans are forced to share a communal experience in person, instead of just tweeting using the same hashtag as the other people watching. They also have very little free time as every single person in the square spends most of their time being interviewed by ESPN about what it is like to be in the square. Plus there is always the fear that Drake might show up again.
“Yeah, when Drake is here that kind of sucks,” said a still unaware Kristen Newton as she tried to dry off from the rain. “But it’s all worth it to get to witness something that no one else in the world gets to see, save for the people who paid like $3,000.00 to watch a 48 minute long basketball game. Those guys are crazy.”
