Winnipeg Jets fans apparently weren’t done getting their pound of flesh after the end of Connor Hellebuyck’s return to the Canada Life Centre on Tuesday.
Devils television play-by-play announcer Don La Greca revealed on his ESPN New York radio show on Wednesday that he was walking back to the team hotel with the broadcast crew as fans yelled at them looking for Hellebuyck, the American gold medalist who requested a trade after 11 years in Winnipeg and was dealt to New Jersey last month.
“You felt it, you felt the energy in that building and the hatred they had for — we walked back to the hotel, there were fans following us, screaming at us, ‘Is this where Hellebuyck is?’ Because they knew we were the Devils announcers. ‘Is this Hellebuyck’s hotel?’ And there were police outside the hotel,” La Greca said on “Don, Hahn & Rosenberg.”
Hellebuyck did not play in the game after Devils general manager Sunny Mehta said in a widely criticized statement that playing the star goalie would give the team “a reduction in our expected win probability.”
Fans viciously booed Hellebuyck during warmups and chanted “coward” and “Helle sucks” at him. Several fans also held critical signs up to the glass. They also chanted “Where is Connor?” after the opening puck drop. Hellebuyck said he wanted to play.
La Greca said he wasn’t scared of the fans following him, though he did have one thought cross his mind.
“You know what I worry about? Are they gonna mess with my food? I don’t want to get poisoned here when they find out I’m the Devils announcer,” he said with a laugh. “Most people were nice, but there was real hate for this guy.”
Hellebuyck did talk to the press in Winnipeg after Tuesday’s morning skate and said there were threats made against his family that were “more than online death threats.”
“There was some moments and some things that happened to my family that, for me, crossed the line and as a husband and a father, I felt made that decision very certain,” Hellebuyck said. “I needed to be a good husband and a good father and do what’s best for my family and my career.”
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