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Auston Matthews booed in Toronto when Leafs announced him as a gold medallist for Team USA
Auston Matthews, captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs and a recent gold medal winner for the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team, got a round of boos from fans when he was introduced at the Leafs’ first home game since the conclusion of the Milano-Cortina Games.
The Saturday night game in Toronto against the Ottawa Senators included a shout-out from the announcer of the various players who had competed in the Olympic hockey games. They included Oliver Ekman-Larsson and William Nylander, both of whom played on Sweden’s team, which lost to the U.S. in the quarterfinals. Each received a warm round of applause from the crowd.
Then the announcer introduced “gold medalist and the captain of your Toronto Maple Leafs Auston Matthews.” At this point, the noise of the crowd shifted to a combination of cheering and booing.
A 34-second video of the incident was posted to YouTube by Toronto resident Agnes Javier-Loveless on Sunday and reshared by Now Toronto. National Post has reached out to Javier-Loveless for comment.
“A bit of a mixed-bag reaction,” said Craig Simpson, the game’s commentator. “Understandably still some heartbreak amongst the Canadians but celebratory of their captain in bringing home a gold medal.”
After its win over Sweden, Team USA went on to beat Slovakia in the semi-finals before besting Canada 2-1 in overtime to take the gold.Co-host Chris Cuthbert noted that Brady Tkachuk, another U.S. Olympic player and team captain of the Ottawa Senators who were playing the Leafs that night, had “got a terrific ovation” at his own first post-Olympics appearance in Ottawa.
Cuthbert called the win for Matthews “a defining moment” but added: “I think if you’re a Leaf fan, you hope it’s a moment of growth. You know, the difference and understanding of what it means to win something of that magnitude can propel you to keep getting better and keep pursuing the goal of winning the Stanley Cup.”
Tkachuk had appeared to insult Canadians in a video that was posted to the White House TikTok account after the U.S. Olympic win. In a post-game press conference, he appears to say: “They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple-syrup-eating-f–ks a lesson.” He adds: “Canada, we own you, lil’ bro.”
The video included a disclaimer at the bottom that it “contains AI-generated media,” but did not provide further context. Tkachuk told CNN that the video was “clearly fake, because it’s not my voice and not my lips moving.” He added: “I know that those words would never come out of my mouth.”
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