Pat Maroon attempts to spear a Leafs fan with his stick
With the Toronto Maple Leafs blowing out the Tampa Bay Lightning in the third period of game two last night, tensions started to flare between the two teams. Numerous fights had broken out, and the Lightning, losing by a large margin late in the third period, were getting chippy which resulted in consecutive trips to the penalty box.
Two players of the Lightning who are all too familiar with the penalty box, Corey Perry and Patrick Maroon, managed to spend some time in the box at the same time. As Leaf fans are not exactly fond of the pair of forwards, all chaos had begun to break loose among Leafs Nation.
Fans were banging on the glass and yelling behind them with an arena of over 18,000 chanting "Perry Sucks! Perry Sucks!" and obviously something else was said that sturred what was to come next; a Maroon spear attempt in the direction of a fan.
Perry managed to prevent Maroon from hurting anyone, but it's just a good example of a professional hockey player being a poor sport. Luckily nobody was hurt, but this is unacceptable behaviour by a professional towards a fan for simply cheering and chirping the away side during an NHL playoff series.
What's maybe the most surprising is how a team with a pedigree like the Lightning can react so poorly and handle this situation completely wrong as a result of being so flustered. You would think a team with that much experience would be able to handle their emotions in the moment, especially a guy like Maroon who spends the majority of his time in the penalty box.
If this is a testament to how the remainder of the series will go, with momentum and physicality continuing to build, the fans are in for a wild finish.
| POLL | ||
AVRIL 21 | 877 ANSWERS Pat Maroon attempts to spear a Leafs fan with his stick Did Patrick Maroon cross the line? | ||
| Yes, that's unacceptable | 772 | 88 % |
| No, I don't think so | 105 | 12 % |
| List of polls | ||
