Online reaction to ‘beatdown in Beantown’ just as raucous as on-ice action
Boston’s calling it the “beatdown in Beantown.”
The Bruins’ 8-1 Game 3 defeat of the Canucks Monday night has the city’s media and hockey fans abuzz online, labelling the victory “sweet revenge,” “payback” and a well-deserved mauling of the “haughty,” “cheap” and “dirty” Vancouver team.
“They avenged the biting of Patrice Bergeron (Game 1), taunting of Bergeron (Game 2), and the headhunting by Canucks defenceman Aaron Rome (Game 3),” wrote Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy in his front-page article titled “Back home, Bruins scorch the ice.”
Shaughnessy named the moment when Bruins goalie Tim Thomas knocked Canuck Henrik Sedin away from his crease and onto his back as the game highlight.
The lowlight?
Aaron Rome’s ugly hit on Nathan Horton, which saw Norton taken off the ice on a stretcher and Rome suspended for four games.
Online, some Bruins fans rallied behind Shaughnessy with harsh words for the Canucks.
Emetib2010 wrote, “Hey Aaron Rome — you woke the bear ... you should never wake a sleeping bear,” while Lesserperson claimed, “it’s going to be ‘To Kill a Canuckingbird’ for Game 4 at the grave of the Ol’ Garden.”
Many called Rome’s hit a dirty cheap shot; some even referenced former-Canuck Todd Bertuzzi’s brutal hit on Steve Moore in 2004 as more evidence of the team’s lack of class.
But several Canucks fans fired back.
Tojalams wrote: “Wow, a little different when the shoe is on the other foot isn’t it?” and went on to point out the Bruins fans’ hypocrisy $— just three months ago Boston’s Zdeno Chara hit Max Pacioretty, who flew into a stanchion and was taken off the ice with a broken neck.
“When a goon intentionally tried to hurt Pacioretty with a dangerous, late, illegal interference play, you all dismiss it as ‘hockey play’,” tojalams added.
Others were more apologetic, saying both Canucks and their fans felt bad about the hit and hoped Horton would recover quickly.
Meanwhile, The Boston Herald’s Steve Buckley took just as hard a line at the National Hockey League as at the Canucks in his column “Tooth hurts: Blame NHL; Point finger at league for ugly hit on Nathan Horton.”
Buckley wrote the NHL was just as culpable as Rome for the hit because it has failed to police other similar incidents.
Many fans echoed Buckley’s sentiment, claiming the NHL could have prevented Horton’s injury.
Hippydippy wrote, “Cheap shots need to be addressed,” while Viagra wrote, “The NHL has let this series get out of control.”
Despite all the smack talk, many Bruins fans encouraged their team to stay classy and keep their momentum going into Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final at TD Garden in Boston Wednesday night.
With Bruins fans breathing sighs of relief after Monday’s game, the night told a different story for Canucks fans — who, until now, were enjoying a comfortable lead over the Bruins.
While Canucks fans in Vancouver watched on tenterhooks as their team suffered sound defeat at the hands of the Bruins in Game 3, some of their brethren in Boston were suffering a much worse fate.
“It was awful,” said New Yorker Erin Kilcullen.
The 23-year-old, who has been a Canucks fan her whole life, scrimped pennies together to afford to see her favourite team play in Boston Monday night.
Kilcullen, her boyfriend and her father attended Game 3 at TD Garden and said after the terrible she’d never go to another game in Boston in her life — even though she now lives only two hours away in Connecticut.
Things were friendly at first, but as the game progressed, Bruins fans got downright nasty.
“After the hit on Horton, it totally changed,” she said. “Everyone was booing and [the section] was calling me the Canucks bitch.”
After the second finger-bite taunt from Milan Lucic, Bruins fans followed suit and tried to stick their fingers in her and her boyfriend’s mouths, Kilcullen said.
“My dad doesn’t get angry easily, but he was upset at that because it went on for so long.”
The worst display, she said, was when a Bruins fan peed on the back of her boyfriend’s legs in an arena washroom. Luckily, other Bruins fans helped him clean up and apologized for the incident.
Post-game, fans jeered and taunted Canucks fans and chanted “F—k the ‘Nucks.”
“It was pretty hostile,” Kilcullen said. “We literally just ran to our car and got in.”
“This makes me want to go to Vancouver to watch the games now.”
She noted about half of Bruins fans were sympathetic and respectful to other Canucks fans, and not everyone was mean-spirited.
Charlie English, an Edmonton native and huge Canucks fan, relayed a similar experience.
Though the night started off well, English said after the Horton hit, things got ugly.
“The atmosphere completely changed from electric passionate energy to aggressive passionate energy,” English said.
He said though he’s six-foot-two tall and weighs 100 kilograms, he still got taunted by Bruins fans as he made his way home. One even offered a cab driver $100 to run him over.
He also heard anti-Canucks chants and said vendors were already selling “F—k the ‘Nucks” shirts on the street.
But, like Kilcullen, English said the majority of fans were more than decent.
“It was awesome to cheer with, against and converse with [them],” he said.
Several more who attended the game in Boston spoke out about their experiences online.
On the wall of a Facebook group called ‘Canucks Fans in Boston for Stanley Cup Final’, several fans wrote about beer, mustard or ice cubes being thrown or poured on them while others said they were targets of racist comments, spit at and flipped the bird.
A handful said they would be filing complaints with the Boston Bruins’ fan relations department.
But still others said their experience was, on the whole, positive and that a few bad apples weren’t representative of the bunch, who were largely good-natured and well-behaved.
For Vancouver’s spandex-clad Green Men, the crowd at Monday night’s game was mostly easygoing. But some fans weren’t as happy to see green.
“There were probably about 90 per cent of people who were really cool,” Green Man Sully said. “About 10 per cent of people were stubborn and a little too inebriated, swearing at us.
“It was a little uncomfortable for us,” he said.
But Sully and Force, Vancouver’s dynamic duo, are gearing up for another night at the TD Garden tomorrow night, where they hope to see the Canucks rebound from their Game 3 loss.
“Whatever happens next game is going to decide a lot of things,” Sully said. “I thought the Canucks, from minute one, would do this in five games. I think that’s still pretty valid.”
— with a file from Niamh Scallan
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