As soon as those blinking pre-show bracelets started raining down on the ice during the third period last night, I had one thought: We deserve what comes from this. On a big night, on a national scale, a segment of the Philadelphia fan base – however small or large – acted like petulant crybabies who couldn’t acknowledge every second of this Flyers playoff series has been on borrowed time. Instead, following the correct call on a nasty and avoidable hit administered by, of all people, Pierre-Édouard Bellemare, many fans showed that they can’t even be expected to keep a stretchy band of rubber on their wrist, or at least off the ice. Even after being warned and scolded by Lou Nolan – the ultimate in “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed,” – fans still acted like spoiled assholes. It wasn’t 19,000 people, but it wasn’t two people either. Those people are shitty fans, unbalanced and immature adults, and because of them we deserve every one of these hot takes.

The most predictable lede of them all comes from Brietbart:

They booed Santa Claus, cheered Michael Irvin’s career-ending injury, and chucked batteries at J.D. Drew. So, Philadelphia fans tossing wristbands on the ice at the Wells Fargo Center Monday night fails to make the top-ten (bottom-ten?) list of bad behavior among sports spectators in the Quaker City.

Professional troll Mike Sielski went in:

In their first home game after the death of Ed Snider – their founder, owner, and chairman – the Flyers and their followers put on a display that manifested the worst instincts within themselves and validated the worst stereotypes about them. They embarrassed themselves, all of them, in every possible way. When spectators scream during a pregame moment of silence for a team’s patriarch – as several Flyers fans did Monday – and it’s not the most graceless, dishonorable episode of the night, that’s telling. The Flyers ignited a melee with 7 minutes, 43 seconds left in regulation, and from that point until the final buzzer, they took 39 minutes in penalties. The Capitals took none, and they scored two power-play goals, and they could chuckle and gloat as the maintenance crews swept up the wristbands in front of their bench …

With no outlet for their frustration, with no hope either in Game 3 or in this series, they resorted to the boorish behavior that always thrills the most sycophantic faction of their fan base and always leaves anyone who appreciates decent hockey rolling his or her eyes.

Here’s the hit just for reference, which looks worse every time it’s replayed:

From NBC:

Voila_Capture 2016-04-19_10-21-49_AM

Jeremy Roenick was fired up about the hit:

“This disgusts me in the biggest way. You can see [Orlov’s] numbers. You know what was coming. It’s a race for the puck, and Bellemare forcefully pushes Orlov into the boards. … I’m telling you, this was as close as I have seen to somebody possibly breaking his neck. This is totally inexcusable. This is a lack of respect for a player’s safety, it’s a lack of respect for a player in general. And I hope — I hope — that the National Hockey League suspends him and keeps him out the rest of the playoffs. Because we cannot have this. I’ve said it time and time again. The lack of respect of guys hitting people from behind three feet from the boards, someone is gonna break their neck one day and then they’ll make changes. … Inexcusable.”

Jason Chimera of the Capitals:

“I think it’s just unfortunate, a few unclassy people. A lot of people come to the games that don’t want to do it. You get a few people that are just not acting right, and they cost their team. The guys are not trying to lose out there. They’re trying their best. They’re trying to win. It was one of those things that it’s unfortunate for a few fans to ruin a good moment.”

From some website I’ve never heard of:

For long, the city of Philadelphia has been known to have some incredibly ruthless and obnoxious fans attend the city’s professional sporting events. Whether it is the Eagles, Flyers, Phillies, or 76ers, Philly fans always seem to come out in full drunken insanity mode. Granted, every city/fanbase has their set of bad eggs, and singular moments of bad judgement or character by a handful of people should not define a fanbase as a whole. However, the city of Philadelphia has shown time after time that more than just “a couple of bad eggs” are ruining their reputation when it comes to defining those who attend games, and on Monday night, we were all reminded that Philly fans are THE worst fans in all of sports.

Sports Illustrated’s Alex Prewitt got slightly more poetic:

Start with the plastic wristbands, chucked over the boards like pennies into fountains. They flew in waves, first after the Philadelphia Flyers received 35 penalty minutes for brawling with their visitors, next before the ensuing faceoff, and finally after the Washington Capitals scored their fifth goal in Monday night’s 6-1 blowout. Trash cans and shovels emerged to clean the mess. Wells Fargo Center emptied. The public address announcer tried his damnedest to keep order. “Have some class,” Lou Nolan said. And then, when more falling bracelets finally forced the officials into action, “Two-minute bench minor. Way to go.”

Hours before madness erupted in the third period, those same wristbands had twinkled while a video tribute played for Philadelphia’s late owner, Ed Snider, who died one week ago. They were placed onto every seat during the morning skate, accompanied by notes that called them “an integral part of our pregame show,” programmed to light up in different colors and flash along to the in-house music. Now, as Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals devolved into a sideshow, ensuring that the Capitals’ first 3-0 series lead in franchise history and their team-record five power play goals will go forgotten, they dotted the rink, white like the ice.

AP’s Dan Gelston called it the “wrong kind of spirit,” which is basically a compliment:

Philadelphia fans showed the wrong kind of spirit late in the game when they tossed wristbands used as part of a pregame lights show on the ice as Washington turned this one into a rout.

Flyers public address announcer Lou Nolan scolded fans and warned the Flyers would be hit with a penalty if they kept littering the ice with bracelets and other garbage.

Sure enough, the wristbands kept coming, and the Flyers were whistled for a bench minor for delay of game. Capitals defenseman Dmitry Orlov was even smacked by a flying bracelet sitting in the penalty box. Nolan said, “way to go,” and the fans cheered as if they were proud of the penalty.

This was nice:

Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky’s surprisingly measured response:

Sports, after all, is entertainment. And sports are better when there are strong, clearly defined characters, playing roles they’ve carved out over the decades. Philly’s role—and here the Flyers and their fanbase are inseparable—is the tough guy, the troublemaker, and more than maybe anywhere else, Philly stays in character. The entire soap opera of pro sports is much more enjoyable because the Philly crowd plays its role so well. It’s not quite the role of the villain, not exactly: it’s more like an elemental force of chaos, adding a genuine sense of menace to the otherwise entirely choreographed proceedings of sports fandom …

The fans who threw bracelets were a tiny minority of the sellout crowd, and they are bad fans. But there were enough of them last night to reflect poorly on everyone else, and to give critics plenty of ammunition to smear Philly fans in the future, fairly or not. It was ugly. Uglier, somehow, than even the Flyers’ play—and that’s the harshest thing I could possibly say.

And finally, Sean Gentille at the Sporting News has the smartest and most layered take of them all. The whole thing is worth a read, but here’s a snippet:

Every large group of people is going to be composed of lots of different personality types, and some of those personality types are, inevitably, going to be gross. The Cardinals have gross fans, the Cubs have gross fans, the Flyers have gross fans, the Penguins have gross fans — one yelled “Flyers suck” during a moment of silence for late owner Ed Snider last week — on and on, into infinity.

Every fan base, at some point, will get got. All anyone associated with them can do is disavow the dummies, try to be responsible for themselves and, if big-time problems with real-world consequences pop up, address it where they can. If nothing else, do not make it worse …

Throwing stuff at sporting events, at the risk of moralizing, is stupid, no matter where it happens.

You think we’d have learned that collectively by now. Then, you realize that fan bases are still saying, at this very moment, that this sort of stuff only happens in Philly, not wherever else — and you realize that you’re wrong.

But when it rains it pours, so why not just let this Caps blog get all pissy about someone trying to distract their goalie during his precious pre-game routine. How dare they.