In sports, we have all seen players who have had bad nights. New York Giants fans can attest to his. There have been times when the team has gotten booed at home because they are underachieving, and it happens a lot. Earlier in the season, Giants fans booed Russell Wilson for his poor red zone passing against the Kansas City Chiefs. However, for whatever reason, we haven’t seen the team booed at home all that much for the rest of the season.
So, it came as a surprise on Sunday night as Luke Hughes was being booed after putting the puck in the wrong net twice against the Hurricanes, but the rest of the team didn’t get booed at all.
Now, did Luke Hughes deserve to be booed? He had his worst game in the NHL, scoring two own goals to help lead the Hurricanes to a 3-1 victory. The first one came when he was standing in front of the net just a few minutes into the game, and the puck just happened to be on his stick. He pushed it forward into the space behind Allen. The second one came after Luke was attempting to take the puck out of the zone, ran into Taylor Hall on the forecheck, and Hall tipped the puck past Allen and into the net. Afterwards, when Hughes went out on his next shift, the fans booed him mercifully and continued to do it every time he touched the puck.
Now you may think, “Well, if he had a bad night, how is it extreme and ridiculous to boo him?” There is one significant aspect that acts as the core problem here: he was being booed all night, every single time he had the puck on his stick. Maybe once or twice is fine, but when someone is booed every time they touch the puck, that’s a problem and an awful look to other hockey fanbases. Yes, Luke is one of the highest-paid players and a defenseman on the team, and he did miss most of training camp and preseason, but he’s still 22 years old, so he’s still allowed to have games like this, especially or a first contract year player.
The biggest problem is that if this is how the fanbase is treating Luke Hughes in this one, why isn’t the rest of the team getting booed as well? Dougie Hamilton and Ondrej Palat have the two most significant contracts on the team, with no movement or trade clauses; they aren’t getting booed. Timo Meier hasn’t scored for most of the season, and the fans aren’t booing him. The same thing with Dawson Mercer, and even Jacob Markstrom.
For that matter, the team went 0/5 on the power play, and the fans didn’t seem to boo each power-play attempt either. They did boo Hughes while he was holding the puck on the power play, which seemed to have the opposite effect. Nobody was booing when the team couldn’t finish their chances, or boo Allen on the Logan Stankoven goal in the 3rd. If Luke Hughes was booed the entire game whenever he touched the puck, the whole team should’ve received the same treatment.
At the end of the day, while maybe booing Luke would’ve been fine for those two mistakes, it’s entirely on the fanbase to be better and accepting when it comes to these mistakes on these players, and they should make this a learning experience, so it never happens again.