It’s 7:41 p.m. on the evening of Nov. 7, 2011 in the TD Garden. In the third row from the top of the balcony, a once extremely rare species is now thriving. A nice specimen stood from her seat and screamed, “YOU’RE SEXY!” at the top of her lungs in the middle of a play. She then turned to one of her associates and asked, “Who is that?” She then proceeded to laugh hysterically. She is a Pinkhat. Pinkhats are fans, usually female (but can be male) and underage, who attend and/or watch games for the sole purposes of looking at the players, getting drunk, and meeting guys (or girls).

With the success that New England sports teams have enjoyed over the past decade, this invasive species has started to claim territory in Fenway Park, Gillette Stadium (when games are played in good weather), and especially the TD Garden.

How did this happen? Well for starters, today in America fads spread like wildfire. Do you remember the first time you saw someone wearing Uggs? The next week half of your high school class was wearing them. It works like that with sports fandom as well. As soon as someone cool or popular decides to start (kind of) cheering for a sports team, it’s only a matter of time until everyone around them does it too.

For a while this subspecies didn’t have a name. They were referred to as “annoying” or “those girls that never shut up”. That changed when Toucher and Rich from 98.5, The Sports Hub coined the phrase “Pinkhat” in 2009. They have a segment entitled “Ask A Pinkhat” in which they find one on the streets and ask her some Red Sox trivia questions. The Pink Hat has come to be the unique trait this group can be identified by. If you see some (they’re usually in groups) at a game, please be understanding if they have a negative impact on your experience. They don’t have the same head start in sports fandom that everyone else has. They didn’t even have the opportunity to watch “SportsCenter” the morning of the game, most likely because they were waiting outside the liquor store for one of their older brothers to buy for them.

So lets return to the balcony at the TD Garden in the midst of a Bruins game. Sitting one row behind this large group of Pinkhats, I couldn’t help but feel mixed emotions. I was glad that they were there, because Pinkhat jersey and ticket sales are great boosts to a team’s revenue, but I also was sort of angry. The seats they were occupying could have gone to a diehard fan, and before the B’s won the Stanley Cup that would have been the case. Now that they won the Cup, ticket prices are higher, and that means that the usually well-to-do Pinkhats have an advantage as far as getting tickets.

This particular group, consisting of around 7 specimens, were obviously drunk, and the only times all night that they seemed interested in what was going on was when they had a chance to get shown on the jumbotron, got into a swear-filled shouting match with some more game-oriented ladies, and when they tried to flirt up some 30-something male fans to try to convince them to buy booze for them.

The behaviors that were exhibited were intriguing over the course of the evening, and it shed light into the often mysterious and secretive world of this fascinating creature that is now only beginning to reveal itself. If you know someone who is a Pinkhat, try to get them some help by teaching them about Boston sports, so we can keep this problem from spreading any further.