| Canucks fans voted most annoying in NHL |
--Headline in the Globe and Mail.
In 2009, Globe and Mail reporter Matthew Sekeres reported on an article written by David Breitman for Spike.com about the most annoying fans in sports, an article in which he ranks Vancouver Canucks fans the fifth-most annoying fans in sports. According to Sekeres, Breitman is:
Canadian-born, Vancouver family, graduated from UVic, summered in B.C.’s interior, former Phoenix Coyotes beat reporter and radio host, Flames fan living in L.A.
It's not surprising that a fellow Northwest Division fan and writer would name the Canucks fans the most annoying in the NHL. I wasn't aware of the Spike article when I named Canucks fans the worst in Canada.
Vancouver fans were at their best after Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals, a game in which the Canucks' Alex Burrows bit the Bruins' Patrice Bergeron during a post-whistle scrum. The bite was captured quite clearly by NBC's cameras and there was no doubt it was a bite. At one point, Burrows even grabbed Bergeron's wrist to prevent him from moving his arm away.
Could Vancouver fans admit to the egregious nature of the act? Of course not. On The Copper & Blue, Nucks Misconduct, Reddit, and Kurtenblog, fans rushed to defense Burrows, saying ridiculous things like "Bergeron forced his fingers into Burrows' mouth". They stuck to the story even after watching the video. They blamed Bergeron for the incident, defending Burrows to the end. Only the boys at Canucks Army owned up to it, with writer Cam Davie calling it a "childish, stupid thing to do."
It's two years later, and the fanbase hasn't lost steam and remain deserving of that #5 overall ranking. And just so Breitman and I aren't accused of unfairly targeting Vancouver fans, the closing from the Globe and Mail article:
Perhaps most remarkably, Canuck Nation seemed to own up to its annoyance on Thursday. More than 72 per cent of the radio station’s poll respondents acknowledged that, yes, they were irritating.