Fans celebrate and cost their team the game, a breakdown
What Happened
The Grand Rapids Griffins are trailing the Cleveland Barons 2-0 with just three minutes remaining in the third period. The Griffins' fans, eager to see their team mount a comeback, are dancing, cheering, and celebrating in the stands. As the Griffins score a goal to tie the game at 2-2 with 39 seconds left, the fans erupt in excitement, throwing pucks onto the ice in celebration. The public address announcer quickly informs the crowd that the Griffins will be assessed a delay of game penalty for the fans' actions. This penalty robs the Griffins of the momentum they had gained from the tying goal and forces them to start overtime a player down. As the Griffins try to kill the penalty, one of their players takes himself out of the play by holding an opposing player's stick, leaving the Barons with an open shot. The Barons capitalize, scoring the game-winning goal and leaving the ice quickly to avoid having more pucks thrown at them. The Griffins' fans have effectively cost their team the game, as the delay of game penalty and the resulting power-play goal for the Barons seal the victory for the visiting team. Head coach Ben Simon of the Griffins expresses his frustration, saying, "I'm disappointed in our fans. They had a chance to really help us in that situation, and instead, they took away our momentum and put us in a tough spot. We'll have to learn from this and make sure it doesn't happen again." Veteran forward Taro Hirose of the Griffins echoes his coach's sentiments, stating, "We had the crowd behind us and a chance to win it, but the fans just couldn't control themselves. It's really frustrating because we were right there, and they took that away from us. We've got to be better at keeping our composure, and the fans need to do the same." Despite the heartbreaking loss, the Griffins will look to bounce back in their next game, determined to put this incident behind them and focus on the remainder of the season. The team and its fans will need to work together to ensure that such a costly mistake does not happen again.
Full Transcript
Click timestamps to jump to that momentCheck out all these Grand Rapids Griffins fans having a good time, dancing in the crowd,
call me maybe, cheersing their beers, enjoying the show, loving life, loving hockey, being fun,
supporting their team, helping the cause. No, not what happened. Not at all what took place.
For shame on these people, having such a good time when their team is losing 2-0,
three minutes to go in the third. That's one. Okay. All right. Mounting a comeback. Only one
more to go. 39 seconds. The shot, the pass, the goal. Tied up. And they're excited as all get out.
Look at this. Pass and then delivers. And that's a tie game. And they're so excited that they're
celebrating and cheering on their team by throwing pucks onto the ice, which isn't that cool?
And there are tons.
Tons and tons and tons of pucks being thrown onto the ice by the Griffin fans here.
These can't be real pucks. Must be foam pucks.
Yeah. And now, correctly so, I believe the Griffins are going to be assessed to delay a game penalty
because their fans don't realize that you can't throw things on the ice.
So they're being admonished right now, the Griffin fans, by the public address announcer.
He doesn't know what to do.
He just mentioned to delay a game penalty. I don't know if that's been assessed or if that's
a warning of sorts, but I mean, look, you're hampering your own team here. If you're the
Griffin fans, you score to tie the game. You still have 26 seconds left. Presumably a huge
burst of momentum comes from that goal. And now that is completely sapped away because these fans
insist on throwing things onto the ice. We've seen it repeatedly.
Repeatedly throwing things onto the ice. Now they go into overtime, down a player on a kill.
And I mean, what are you doing, fans? Look at this guy. He's trying to hold his stick,
takes himself out of the play. What are you doing? You know, get up. There's only three of you.
No need holding his stick. And then this guy takes the shot to the leg. So he's out of the play,
which leaves the back door wide open. And they score with ease. The Cleveland Barons score with
ease. They win the game and they're out of there because they don't want to get pucks thrown at
them. Nuh-uh. And the fans, what are you doing? For shame. And the fans deal the Griffins a loss
all on their own. And they're out of there because they don't want to get pucks thrown at them. Nuh-uh.
Here in their own home building. We'll never know what could have happened because the
Monsters took advantage of the delay of game penalty due to fans throwing pucks onto the
ice at the end of regulation after the Griffins tied it to use that power play and win.