If there's one thing I hate about the NHL playoffs (or any postseason, for that matter), it's when the rivalry between two clubs reaches the point where each fan base begins looking for the moral high ground over the other. IT'S JUST SPORTS, GUYS.
Don't tell that to Amanda Bruno at The (Springfield, Mass.) Republican and countless others like her, though.Tampa Bay Lightning fans threw their giveaway noisemakers on the ice in excitement after their team won a must-win game! Oh no!
And one of them hit David Krejci in the head! Will somebody please think of the children!
Fans were obviously excited and they had every right to be, but was it really necessary to toss your noisemakers all over the ice and aim specifically at Bruins center David Krejci who recorded a hat trick?
At the end of the game, there was a scuffle between the two teams and suddenly a shower of noisemakers were thrown onto the ice, deliberately trying to hit any Bruins player in its path.
Yes, Tampa Bay fans were deliberately throwing their noisemakers at the Bruins! What a bunch of animals. Really should just lock them in the building and keep 'em there, I say.
But damn, they have some good aim. Maybe we could field a baseball team and go win the Dominican League or something, since 20,000 people successfully hit David Krejci right in the head. They can surely all find a strike zone.
That explains why there are so many of them are on the other side of the ice. And near where the Lightning were on the ice celebrating with their goaltender. And well, everywhere else in the building. Granted, Krejci was kind of everywhere in Game 6 -- pretty fantastic performance by him.
Ah, but wait. This gets more incredulous.
Bruins fans aren't exactly in the clear when it comes to throwing objects onto the ice in celebration, as they did in both series clinchers against Montreal and Philadelphia, but they were cotton rally towels not hard plastic objects that could actually hurt someone.
Stay classy Tampa.
You know, after 82 regular season games, 17 NHL playoff games and 60 just-completed minutes of bruising hockey, I think a professional athlete can handle a plastic noisemaker to the helmet. sh*t, I'm sure he can handle a noisemaker to the face even. It wouldn't be the end of the world, would it?
Nah. I say we petition the Board of Governors. We need to enact a rule to make sure the players have more protective padding. You never know what those crazy Tampa fans might do. Classless pigs.
Hey, Boston: if you want to make fun of Lightning fans, why don't you call them out for the need to even have noisemakers, instead of for doing the same thing we all do when a player scores three goals in a game?
You sound ridiculous otherwise.
