A Red Wings fan is surrounded by celebrating Predators fans as Nashville won the series, April 20, 2012. AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

Measuring Fan Hate by Likes

Every time a team gets knocked out of the playoffs, I post "Goodbye, (Team X)" to all the various social networks (Facebook, Twitter, G+).

Useless but fun, it gets a great reaction from fans, and I do it for the first 14 teams that lose a series. To the Cup winners go congratulations, and to the losers a tip of the hat.

I thought it'd be fun to look at how many people "like" or have commented on a series loss as a barometer of the hatred for each team. This is about as unscientific as it gets, although I'll add a qualifier: the date & hour of each post, as timing often factors into the magnitude of reaction.

Facebook is where I first started this site's social activity, and that page has the largest following, so it only makes sense there would be the most reaction there. Lots of "yays" and lots of "fffffuuuuuu".

Twitter is more cumbersome to measure (retweets vs @s), and G+ seems like it's finally gaining a little traction, but for now, it's all Facebook:

The numbers aren't surprising. The most popular teams - and those that have been good for years - have the most haters, just as they possess some of the most vocal fan bases.

Perhaps next time I can throw in something from Pinterest, to make it even less exacting.