The Chicago Blackhawks just got crushed by the Vancouver Canucks with 6-2 in their recent match. It was a harsh defeat, for sure, but it wasn’t just the score or the final results that disappointed fans. A cruel incident awaited their peak anger only when the 19-year-old star, Connor Bedard, got penalised for two misconducts in his back-to-back matches! Bedard entered the game against the San Jose Sharks on March 14 with no misconducts in his career, but what went down last night was nothing short of poor treatment of the young player that left fans in fury!

It was a 10-minute misconduct penalty in the third period when the referees made questionable calls on Bedard—when his teammate Jason Dickinson slammed Canucks’ Filip Chytil from behind, to knock him out of the game. B/R Open Ice shared the exact clip on X. Chytil exited the game and hadn’t returned to the ice till the end. The move on Chytil left the Canucks disgruntled and boom, the anger erupted! The Canucks had Bedard cornered to the back of the Canucks’ net in a scrum and BOOM! Bedard, though clueless, had his anger boil over in response.

The caption? “Why you mad?” – Bedard 😭, implied a sarcastic yet frustrated tone that highlighted Bedard’s disappointment with the situation! And it left no time for fans to vent their frustration too, over the lack of support for the young player who was poorly judged by the officials. These decisions only fueled the fire among the community while they couldn’t believe what they were witnessing.

However, this wasn’t the first time Bedard had been in a similar situation. It happened just two days earlier, in a match against the San Jose Sharks, when Bedard was penalized for abusing the officials! Well, in case you think that’s totally out of character, you need to think again. Because the call came after an uncalled trip by Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro, which left Bedard frustrated. Even though fans questioned whether the penalty was fair, many wondered what exactly had triggered the incident.

The argument regarding the penalty call, or something that Bedard said to the officials wasn’t entirely clear. But what Bedard said afterwards in an interview, was “I don’t think it was too crazy, but you know… he’s the ref so he gets to make that call so you gotta live with it,” he said, recalling the same.

But coming back to what happened just hours ago, under a completely different circumstance, it isn’t just about the penalties, but also about Bedard’s response. In both instances, Bedard let his emotions get the best of him. Hockey does that to you and he’s 19 years of age. No blemish in his career barring two ten-minute penalties in back to back games. While NHL Insider, Frank Seravalli thinks that Bedard should’ve acted smarter, fans aren’t exactly of the same opinion.

Fans demand support for Connor Bedard

One fan bluntly addressed the Blackhawks when they wrote, “Where’s the rest of Chicago defending their dude?” After all, they want their star player to be backed by the strong team when the going gets tough. Yet, what they saw was Bedard left abandoned behind the Canucks tent with Frank Nazar! The drama didn’t end there. When fans stopped analysing how the referees penalised him, they gave up and wrote, “Then he gets a 10-minute misconduct for absolutely NOTHING for the 2nd straight game” in utter disbelief.

But it wasn’t just the penalty itself; it was the sheer inconsistency too. Another fan expressed a similar concern—“Dude what’s up with another 10 minute? Can we get some clarification? That’s insane time for something so small.” while demanding better explanations for the accusations against Bedard. But the anger didn’t stop at questioning the misconducts only. Some got furious about the unfair targeting of Bedard by the referees.

“Bedard is being targeted by the refs! For him to get back-to-back misconducts in consecutive games is laughable and a horrible call.” Another fan threw off their anger on the referee itself when they added, “So Bedard gets a 10 min for that? Refs are f—— tarded this year.” With back-to-back misconducts pointed out against Bedard, does it imply a pattern of mistreatment that has fans questioning the fairness of officiating.

However, with the dust settling, one thing is very certain. Fans are not backing down even if the Blackhawks do!