Do we care about the Garth Brooks banner?

Garth Brooks sells out nine shows at Rogers Place and gets a banner for it. Do we care?

As I’m sure all of you know by now, the OEG has decided to honour Garth Brooks with a commemorative banner that will hang in the rafters at Rogers Place. The banner doesn’t hang with the Oilers and Oil Kings, it’s more so off in its own section but was nevertheless presented to Garth complete with Gretzky video and the whole shebang. When I brought it up on the Twitter the reaction ranged from anger to indifference. Pick a feeling flavour and it’s out there on this particular subject. For some, having a banner in the rafters is supposed to be reserved for sports accomplishments whereas others felt that Rogers Place is home for community events of all kind, and that selling out nine consecutive shows is worthy of recognition. 

For me, personally, I don’t really care either way. I know that’s a lame stance to take but I can honestly see both sides of the argument. I can understand why some people would say ‘who cares’ that the guy played nine concerts, that’s kinda his thing. On the other hand, I can see why people that went to the shows (myself included) can appreciate the magnitude of what he did. As a third option, I can also see why the OEG would be honouring the country icon for what truly amounted to a marketing grand slam. This Garth Brooks residency worked out so well that I would be surprised if OEG’s game plan doesn’t already include trying to lure more icons into setting up shop at Rogers Place like it’s some kind Northern Vegas-lite. Hanging a banner in the rafters to stroke some egos and maybe throw up a flag for future performers? That’s easy stuff. Let’s see what they do for Beyonce when she does 10 straight shows on the not yet existing summer tour of 20-whatever. 

Anyway…

Back to the Garth banner itself, I want to know what you guys think about having it up there. Do you like that the OEG gave Garth a shout out? Do you hate it? Are you wondering why I spent 25 minutes writing about this in the first place? Let me know in the comments section. I went to see him on Thursday night, and the guy puts on a great show and he makes it look easy. I’d go see Garth again in a heartbeat. The man was a true professional, he entertains with swagger and he wrapped 18,000 people around his finger in a way that not many performers can do. When Garth said jump we all asked how high and threw our wallets at him while waiting for further instructions. I’m telling you that it was impressive to witness first hand. My question for you is whether or not that deserves to have a banner hanging in the rafters at Connor’s house?