At times on Wednesday night during Game 3, Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe had a difficult time hearing himself think.
“I found it quite loud in there,” Keefe said of the atmosphere at Scotiabank Arena for the Leafs’ first home game of the first round against the Boston Bruins.
“There was a number of times that it was hard calling out lines. You have to scream the lines and you have to move up and down the bench to make sure players are hearing and communicating properly.
“That was the same in Boston and we experienced that (in Toronto) as well.”
The crowd issue was raised with Keefe in response to a post to X (formerly Twitter) by Leafs radio broadcaster Joe Bowen in the minutes after the Bruins beat the Leafs 4-2.
Bowen posted that the idea of going to any sporting event is for fans to be proactive, and to “Give the team energy when they need it Not sitting down waiting To be REACTIVE. The players can’t say but I will tonight’s crowd was VERY DISAPPOINTING.”
By mid-afternoon on Thursday, the post had nearly 700,000 views and was liked more than 4,000 times.
“From my perspective, I didn’t see that as an issue at all,” Keefe said. “In fact, there was some moments of the game where (the crowd) got extremely loud. Clearly, that’s important.
“It’s hard when there is not much between the teams and the players are giving everything that they have. That extra boost is really important, but that wasn’t on my mind at all. If anything, as a coach, your voice in your head is kind of pounding a little bit because you’re screaming for two and a half hours to try to communicate over top of the noise.”
About The Author
Leave a Reply