Montreal Alouettes ban air horns from home games

After complaints from other fans and a reminder of the Canadian Football League’s (CFL) policies, the Montreal Alouettes say fans will no longer be allowed to bring air horns into the stadium for home games.

Superfan Denis Genereux and a group of other season ticket holders started bringing air horns to the games in 2011.

“A bunch of crazy fans like me, it just went crazy, and ever since then, it’s been used,” he said. “It’s been the signage of Montreal. These air horns were bothering the other team. We’re bothering the other team’s offence, and we were doing our jobs as the 13th player.”

Genereux and other fans will now need to find another way to rally the home side.

The CFL’s gameday venue policies are clear.

“Air horns, megaphones, whistles and other mechanical noise makers” are listed as prohibited items.

Alouettes spokesperson Francis Dupont said other fans were not as excited about the noisemakers as Genereux.

“We received a lot of complaints in our customer surveys,” he said.

Genereux said other teams bring cowbells, trumpets, drums and other noisemakers to mess with opposing teams.

“There are all kinds of tools to make noise,” he said. “For us, it was the air horn. Now it’s being banned.”

Genereux said, however, that he “totally” approves of the ban.

“The Als office was classy in that process because they called me up during winter and they said, ‘Denis, we’re thinking about banning those things because there were some Alouettes fans who were thinking about leaving and not renewing their season tickets because they were right in front of those air horn users.”

When Genereux first brought an air horn to a game, he was in the end zone with no one in front of him.

He said he understands other fans’ concerns because the noise is intense.

“If you’re right in front of it, it’s dangerous,” he said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that air horns are loud enough to damage your hearing “immediately.”

“Using an air horn to scare someone or get their attention isn’t a joke or a harmless prank,” the CDC wrote. “It could hurt their hearing forever, and you could hurt your own hearing too.”

The CDC says that an air horn is 129 decibels, and any sound that’s 85 decibels or higher can cause hearing loss or other hearing problems, such as tinnitus.

It recommends wearing earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones and explicitly advises not to use air horns.

“You could hurt the hearing of everyone around you,” the CDC writes. “It’s not worth it.”

Genereux acknowledged the fact that people took air horns to other sections, and that people’s health was at risk.

“Of course, there are people in front of them, and those people are suffering from it,” he said. “I’m a team player and I approve that the fans...were aggravated and they are allowed to have their best experience at the game.”

Genereux added that he would like to see a section similar to the Ultras section at CF Montreal and other soccer games.

Talks are still determining whether this will happen, he said.

In the meantime, Genereux said he is planning on bringing a small horn he needs to blow to make noise, and said he plans to aim the horn up out of respect for other fans.