Two good rules of thumb for day-to-day life: practice good personal hygiene, and don’t overly concern yourself with the personal hygiene of others.
Some junior hockey fans in Oshawa, Ontario, perhaps forgot about the former, and the city’s Ontario Hockey League team briefly forgot about the latter.
The Oshawa Generals, after sending an email to season-ticket holders on Tuesday asking them to “be mindful of personal cleanliness while sharing our space with fellow fans,” partially reversed course on Thursday, posting an apology on social media and, seemingly, a retraction of the original request. “We took a penalty on that one,” the post read. “It’s not our place to overstep like we did. We are sorry and hopeful we can wash this one off.”
The initial email — initially reported by Durham Radio News — was sent with “warm regards” by director of ticket sales and service Jason Hickman, and encouraged fans to stay home if they were feeling unwell, to cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing, to make use of hand sanitizing stations and — of course — to take a pregame shower “if you went to the gym or did something that produced body odor.”
Hickman, in a story posted on Thursday before the team’s social-media post, told DurhamRegion.com that complaints about the issue at hand have increased over the last month.
“I got a lot of people complaining about the (person) next to them smelling like cat pee, bad breath, this, that and everything else,” Hickman said.
“(Fans) don’t want to approach their neighbor and it’s awkward for me to approach their neighbor and say, ‘Hey, you smell.’ Having a generic email like we did, all-encompassing to all season ticket-holders, and they just kind of hopefully look in the mirror and say, ‘You know what? I can do better.”
Requests for comment from The Athletic to Hickman, the Generals and the OHL have not yet been returned.