An older man that took a puck from a kid during Sunday’s Penguins game at PPG Paints Arena got literally booed out of the building.
Listen: Penguins President explains puck incident
Penguins President of Business Operations Kevin Acklin tells KDKA Radio’s Marty Griffin the incident happened toward the end of the second period.
He says a puck got caught in the netting, over the glass during a play.
A young boy went to the glass and starting shaking it to get the puck loose.
“The puck drops and before he can reach down and enjoy the fruit of his efforts, another older fan reaches out and grabs the puck, basically out of the boy’s hands,” said Acklin.
The boy went back to his seat upset and the Penguins faithful took exception to the move, booing the man.
Shortly after, a girlfriend or wife of one of the Penguins players came over and handed the boy a puck, on her own.
After mother of the boy, boy and wife/girlfriend shared hugs, the man that snatched the first puck go involved again.
He “stood up and started yelling at the fans who were booing him and did some gestures,” said Acklin.
At that point, the ushers decided to eject the fan, which the Penguins have the right to do.
“We have a ‘no jagoff’ rule here,” said Acklin, adding the fan was escorted from the building.
Acklin doesn’t understand why the man got into the mother of the boy’s face and caused more of an incident.
“You got the puck . . . I don’t know what goes through an adult’s head to, in effect, take a puck away from a young fan.”
“We take pride in what we do here at the arena, on and off the ice and we expect our fans to have a certain level of decorum and for a bit of time last night, that didn’t happen but I give credit to our fans for kind of, policing our own.”
Acklin says they’re looking into the fan that started the commotion to see if he’s a season ticket holder or regular guest.
“We’ll make sure that he knows that that’s not behavior that we want to see here at PPG Paints Arena,” said Acklin.