Detroit Fans Act Like They're From Philly

Among some hockey fans, Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby has developed quite the reputation. While Penguin fans swear by his consistent play and leadership ability, other fans look at him as a complainer, whiner, and even someone who embellishes to try to get the attention of officials.

Think what you want of him, but it's hard to argue that he got pretty banged up Friday night during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Unfortunately, Detroit fans were not on their best behavior in response to his injury.

Check out the video evidence.

I'm going to guess that CBC didn't pipe in that crowd noise.

While it wasn't a topic on the NBC broadcast, it was a topic at the postgame press conference. A reporter identified himself as a "Detroiter," expressed his disappointment, and asked Crosby if he noticed the cheers.

"Yeah, I mean, when somebody's injured I don't think that's, you know, something to cheer about," Crosby said. "But at the same time I've played in a lot of tough buildings, and it wouldn't be something that totally surprises me. You know, they want to see their team win. They see me getting hurt, and maybe they see it as an advantage.

"But that's the last thing that was going through my mind is whether or not people were cheering or booing. There was a lot of things going through my mind, but that wasn't one of them."

Crosby played just one shift the rest of the game. While he said he "jammed his knee", there has been nothing else said about exactly what happened to Crosby.

Detroit fans have always had the reputation of being among the league's best. They failed themselves greatly on Friday, with very Philadelphia-like behavior (no offense to Philadelphia fans, but they'd probably cheer if one of their players chopped Crosby's arm off during a game). It's simply wrong to cheer when a player -- even one you don't like -- is injured. The fact that Detroit fans fell into the anti-Crosby trap is defensible, as he can be quite the polarizing figure because of the attention he gets from the media. However, their performance on Friday was quite shocking and disappointing.