Has the Bashing Gone too Far?

Throughout the NHL regular season, fans of all teams give and take their fair share of trash talk, but as the playoffs roll around the intensity of team bashing sky rockets. This meaningless jargon that we speak of, in some cases, turns to utter disrespect, not only from fans but some media outlets as well. Being Pens fans, we are subjected to the usual crap about our Captain Sidney Crosby being a “whiner” or whatever else they think is creative to call him.Take for instance an article written at NESN.com with a title of “Time for Sidney Crosby to Stop Nonsense on Ice.” The first line of the piece says, “When exactly will Sid the kid act like Sid the man?”, well let’s see, he was the youngest Captain at the age of 21 to have won a Stanley Cup and he won a Gold medal all before the age of 23 and this writer chooses to go after Sid because his frustrations got the best of him in Game 2 against Montreal. The article described it as Sidney having a “temper tantrum” and “displayed the emotional control of a 5-year-old getting sent to timeout.” When we see the media writing “pieces” like this, how do people expect the fans to act. In another instance, a Montreal restaurant decided to use a Crosby jersey as a door mat. Sidney’s comment on the fiasco was, “after playing so many game in Philly”, we can only guess what he thinks after hearing that but from a fans perspective, to me at least, it’s mind boggling. Here is a guy who just won your country Gold not only 3 months ago and that’s the response he gets?

Now Pens fans aren’t angels either. I recently sat behind a couple on the lawn who continued to boo through the Canadian National Anthem. I was stunned nonetheless as I reminded them the majority of our team were Canadians. Next you have the so called fans who call for Fleury to be traded, bench Poni, or start BeeJ after a loss or play the point the finger and blame a player game. Yes I’ll admit, I have called out a couple guys before due to their play but recently it only seems to be getting worse after each loss. After our Game 2 debacle, Damian made a great comment, “Why can't the Penguins lose a playoff game without being scolded? Bandwagon fans? I call bandwagon media”. The media can be just as ridiculous as some fans anymore. Again adding fuel to the trash talking industry. The way I look at it is, let the team you support do that talking by their actions on the ice. Scoring a big goal, making a huge save, or just playing a down right awesome game, the players can handle the heat. So the next time you have an obnoxious fan blabbing in your ear about how much your team sucks, just let them, because they more than likely love listening to themselves talk.

Posted in: pittsburgh penguins,trash talk