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Dear Habs fans: Chill the fuck out



“No matter who’s in charge, no matter which kid we draft, no matter who gets traded for whom, Habs fans will nitpick and moan at every opportunity. Same script, different cast. We crave players drafted by other clubs, all while failing to acknowledge that if we HAD drafted them, we’d find ways to slander them, too.”

by BarelyHandsome

24 Comments

  1. We all know which 5 twitter accounts are responsible for the toxicity in this fandom. Fuck them all, amateur see-saw fans

  2. Dull-Objective3967

    Yes the fan base needs to learn that a young rebuilding team will be bad until the kids figure it out.

    Also some contracts that where signed by the last regime will look bad until there gone from the team.

  3. Leftover-Lefty

    That’s just the Internet in general now. There’s no nuance to anything and rational, normal takes aren’t interesting so people resort to extremes.

  4. People have every right to be concerned how the Habs spent their two top 5 picks. Maybe it works out maybe it doesn’t.

    The fans had to watch historically bad hockey for Slaf and Reinbacher, who are off the slow starts. No it doesn’t define their careers, but it gives more cause for concern.

    Hell Hughes even admitted they drafted for need with Reinbacher. That’s not something I want my team EVER doing in the top 5 of a draft. He also admitted he didn’t feel he had 1D upside.

    Zero nuance in this type of stuff. Any criticism/ cause for concern gets you labeled as toxically negative. At the end of the day we all just want to watch good hockey, and let’s be honest if management fucked up these picks it’s going to be hard to get there.

  5. JourneyToArcana

    ” And if Reinbacher made a mistake during a game, so what? Developmental windows are the best times for mistakes to be made, and that should very much be kept in mind when Reinbacher comes over to North America as early as next season.”

    ​

    Absolutely

  6. OkAnything4877

    The thing about it with Slafkovsky and Reinbacher is that we might have Rantanen and Pietrangelo on our hands, or we might have Jesse Puljujarvi and Patrice Brisebois. There’s a lot that hinges on how those two picks turn out. So yeah, there’s a lot of scrutiny there, and with that comes toxicity and frustration when things don’t go well.

  7. *Again, why invest that energy into something making you viscerally unhappy? What do you stand to gain? Who is that serving? Why not reinvest it into hobbies and interests that actually make you feel good? Are you just being an obnoxious hot take merchant for engagement, or do you genuinely believe how you’re talking about these kids is productive?*

    Bingo. This is what I don’t ge . as well If you want to claim “fan of the team” how exactly are these toxic takes in anyway helpful? My feeling is people project alot of personal frustation on Habs and these players as a consequence. There is a really strange othering that sees these players as things and not people and thus freereign to abuse them at will.

  8. Woullie_26

    Do you see fans shitting on someone like Lane Hutson?

    No not at all because he has pedigree and has shown that he can be an elite talent at the next level. Something that not a lot of out prospects have done the past few years.

    If Slaf and Reinbacher are off to slow start it of course dosent define their career. But you would have to be smoking the biggest amount of copium imaginable if it dosent at least concern you a little bit especially when prospects in the similar timeframe have shown more promising things.

    Also the guy who wrote that article called for Hughes’s head when they picked Reinbacher over Michkov. Just saying.

  9. TwelveBarProphet

    Celebrate the wins, learn from the losses, and above all enjoy the games.

  10. I want to remain positive but honestly, some day, it would be nice to have a forward that is in the top 10 or even 20 offensive leader in the league. Caufield leads the team at 67 in the nhl right now. Suzuki finished 71 last season. It’s depressing.

  11. Fans will do that regardless of what team. Just watch the games.

  12. fe__maiden

    I just want great goaltending again. Is that too much to ask? 😭

  13. bordercauley

    Habs fans will nitpick and moan because the team hasn’t had a 40 goal scorer in 30 years and our leading scorer isn’t even sniffing the top 30 this year

    We crave players drafted by other clubs because our drafting has been terrible

    Some level of negativity will always be present but laying the blame on the fans solely and saying we would complain no matter what doesn’t really capture the current situation, which is that the Habs have been a wasteland for decades when it comes to scoring talent and our scouting staff seems determined to keep it that way

  14. JeanJacquesDatsyuk

    Boring take. Its montreal. If you perform you’ll be a hero, if you dont fans will let you know, management included. Are these people new in town?

  15. G_skins31

    We have finished in the bottom half of the standings for 7 years in a row! I’m actaully surprised so many people are happy with the direction of the team and patient enough for more years of the draft being the most exciting part of the season

  16. Suburbia67

    The toxicity in sports has become widespread in every division. Even journalists attack others, especially those in non-traditional media, and will make their lives a living hell. As for fan base, every market has it.

    For context: I’m a former editor for a fan-driven sports site. I broke into the hockey circles and have developed relationships with scouts, assistant GMs and members of the media. I’m the one who broke the Romanov/Dach trade but was dismissed because I didn’t work for Rogers or Bell. One on-screen personality from RDS/TSN sent me messages of hate after I leaked info on a possible Kulak to Edmonton trade and again when I suggested Petry will go to either Dallas, Detroit or Pittsburgh.

    Fans? I suggested Gabriel Vilardi might be a potential trade candidate because he’d have to pass waivers to be sent down. I was met with threats of kidnapping and doing unspeakable things to by toddler.

    I quit. Deleted my Twitter and protected my family the best I could.

    Toxicity in sports is a real thing. Anger towards your favorite team happens all the time. However, I just wanted to demonstrate how serous it can get.

  17. Grandor2021

    I think the problem might not be as much as habs fan being negative per se (there’s of course some haters, but overall I think differents opinions even out), I just think that this fanbase tend to overhype other teams’ players and success. Like I think that a lot of habs fans on the internet don’t listen that much to hockey outside the habs, so if, as an extreme example, you only see McDavid otherwordly plays and stats, you don’t notice how he can be a real liability defensively some nights and how such an high end talent commands an enormous contract making it difficult to build a team around.

    The character emphasis in habs recent drafting makes a lot of sense in a salary cap era. If you get players ready to play hard night in and night out and ready to put the team above themselves and their own status, you get deals like CC that could’ve gotten around 9m and shorter-term if he didn’t care which team he’s on. Bottom line, 1m may make all the difference when signing UFAs for a cup run.

  18. Druidic_assimar

    We are all so used to being able to run our mouths on the internet with zero consequences, and it’s problematic at best.

    The habs fanbase is so dismissive of the mental health of players (key example: carey price gave this franchise everything he had but I recall him taking so much shit from fans through the years whenever he wasn’t on his trademark A game. It wasn’t until we lost him that he was truly appreciated). And I agree, these boys are literal teenagers. Maybe if we weren’t such fucking assholes to every prospect that comes through our door, we would see better development.

    NHLers are just people who happen to excel at hockey enough for it to be their career. They are under so much pressure all the time. Most of the armchair GMs out here probably couldn’t stomach an ounce of the public scrutiny that the habs do. Its honestly wild to see individuals, who are themselves clearly insecure, bashing rookies for not being able to take a little heat.

    Between the illusion of internet invincibility and entitled cockiness, it’s fucking suffocating.

  19. I agree.

    Here’s the thing. We gave Bergevin two 5-year plans before unanimously declaring him a failure. We should at least give the current management team the same courtesy. #GoHabsGo

  20. hockeynoticehockey

    OK, has anyone been on any Leafs fan sites? I read those and wonder why anyone would want to play in that market. I truly don’t think we’re as bad, but our expectations are not the same either.

    btw, I was pretty chill before seeing this post.

    Haters gonna hate, don’t give them air, that’s all they want.

  21. Snow-Wraith

    You know what would make Habs fans chill out? Winning hockey. Tanking is a failing mentality. We’ve seen the horrendous effects it’s had on Edmonton and Buffalo, now we’re just as bad.

  22. Kushykush_

    I think we have great players just feels like the same old shit every season (I also think we shoulda traded gally a long time ago)

  23. Sentenced2Burn

    the formatting on this e-rag is horrendous lol

    why is every 10th word highlighted with a big obnoxious rectangle?

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