Video appears to show an incident involving Hellebuyck and Jets fans outside Devils' hotel
Photo credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
A video from outside the Devils' Winnipeg hotel adds context to the broadcast crew's account of Jets fans after Connor Hellebuyck's return.
A video from outside the New Jersey Devils' hotel in Winnipeg paints a smaller picture than the early reaction did.
According to Jeff Veillette, the footage shows two people chirping from a sectioned-off area at a hotel a block from the rink, and he considers the scale of the coverage overblown.
The clip is credited to the Instagram account winnipegwildin, and its contents have not been independently confirmed.
What the Devils broadcast crew said
The story took off Wednesday, when Devils play-by-play announcer Don La Greca told listeners of his ESPN New York radio show that fans followed the broadcast crew back to the hotel after Tuesday's game, asking whether Hellebuyck was staying there.
He added that police were outside. That is his account of the night, and no police statement has been confirmed.
The mood was already heated. Hellebuyck requested a trade after 11 years in Winnipeg and was dealt to New Jersey last month.
He did not play in his return after Devils general manager Sunny Mehta said starting him would lower the team's expected win probability.
Fans booed through warmups, chanted at him, held up signs, and kept going after puck drop. The Jets won 4-2.
Why both versions can be true
La Greca's description and the video do not have to contradict each other.
A few people shouting from a distance can feel unsettling when you are walking back at night with a work crew, and still look mild on camera.
One clip captures one spot from one angle.
It cannot show the whole walk, so it cannot settle how the walk felt.
Veillette's core point still lands. Heckling visiting staff is juvenile, but there is a wide gap between juvenile and dangerous, and some headlines framed the night in the second terms.
What happened inside the building, by contrast, is well documented: loud, relentless, and verbal.
Until someone produces a fuller picture of that full walk inside the hotel, the fairest read is a rowdy night in a charged atmosphere that got described in bigger terms than a single video supports.
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