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Photo courtesy of Washington Hockey Now
I hate to start this piece off sounding like the boomer that I truly am at heart, but let me tell you what's wrong with the world today...
Too many people get themselves worked up over things that we think other's are saying or doing, without any concrete evidence whatsoever. This is how fake news gets spread, and what further divides us as a society.
The NHL world was victim of this type of extremist thinking on Saturday night.
During a 2-1 win over the Arizona Coyotes on January 28th, Anaheim Ducks star Trevor Zegras got into a dust-up with Coyotes defenseman, Troy Stecher. During the altercation, cameras caught Zegras lipping something to Stecher while the referees tried to separate the two. Stecher went ballistic over the unknown comment, and the keyboard warriors and lip readers went straight to work.
Many speculate that Zegras said something about Stecher's father as he pointed to the sky, alluding to Peter Stecher, who passed away on June 21st, 2020 due to complications from diabetes.
Now, I will admit, when I watched the footage it did look a lot like Zegras might've said the word "dad" while waving his hand to the sky. But unlike others, I'm not one to vilify a person based on what I think they said. Apparently I'm alone in that situation. Twitter users quickly took to the platform to attack Zegras, spew hate speech and drag the kid's name through the mud... all because they think he said something mean about Troy Stecher's father.
Does anyone else realize how outrageous this all is? Especially after the Coyotes organization themselves revealed that Zegras said absolutely nothing about Peter Stecher? I mean, my god people, let's wait until the full story comes out before we cancel the guy!
It's still unclear what the comment was that sent Stecher into a blinding rage, but Hockey Twitter is still hot on the case.