I realize this will probably fall on deaf ears, but I already typed it so here goes:
I grew up an all Philly sports fan, and this reputation is really not fair to a majority of us. And I do mean that, I'm not just defending for no reason.
We get shit for the Santa thing still. That was over 50 years ago, and no one remembers that the guy was shit drunk and stayed on the field for a longer amount of time than he was supposed to. The Vet was wild, and also almost 20 years ago. We don't fight people in the stands at the Linc. We don't assault people with batteries at CBP. The most you'll get is a few boos and some shit talking, the same as anywhere else, and should be expected. Its always been that way with real fans that are into the games, don't go if you don't want to hear bad words. But I digress, this isn't about shit talking during games.
We get hate for stuff that people 2 generations ago did, not many fan bases get treated that way, and other teams' fans calling us shit bags is what I think really fuels the fire.
If other fans would just let stuff go, you wouldn't know the difference between our fans or any other cities' fans.
We lose a lot. We get shit on a lot. And we have a huge target on our backs because its easy to say Philly sucks and join the party. In all sports, our rivals are other big market East Coast teams that are used to winning like Pittsburgh, NYC, Baltimore and Boston. We get treated like the annoying little brother that isn't good enough all the time by other fans, then they get mad at us. We don't sit there and complain about it, we take it and only start defending ourselves when we get attacked first, in stuff like this thread. We didn't kill anyone, we know you don't like us, what are you accomplishing other than adding gas to the "Fuck Philly" fire? This is why our bad rep doesn't die. Because of other teams' fans.
The wristbands were a dumb idea, no doubt about that. But that would have gone bad anywhere. It was not an outrageous thing where people got hurt, no one through them on the ice during the game where someone could have gotten hurt, it was just annoying and uncalled for during stoppages. There's no excuse for it, but this was not on the level you want it to be on.
Its fine to hate us for fucking up a series like we did to Boston a few years ago (quickest example I could think of, not meant to be a jab Bruins fans), or our guy causing an injury to one of your guys, shit talking, etc. But we are in no way on the level of the murders and stabbings that happen other places that no one cares about, but we sure do get treated that way.
Its no wonder why we have fans that act like assholes. Because other fanbases stereotype us as shitty, out of control people who don't give a fuck right off the bat.
Its hard to not look like an asshole when everyone has been calling you one for the past 50 years.