"Shove it in his face": Hansen thinks Canucks fans should boo Horvat
While current Vancouver Canucks players and most fans seem to be in favour of giving Bo Horvat a warm welcome tonight, a former player shares a different view.
Jannik Hansen played in Vancouver for parts of 11 seasons, including three as Horvat’s teammate. And he thinks fans have every right to still be upset by the former captain’s infamous “I’ll tell you that for free” comments last April.
Horvat will play his first game in Vancouver as a member of the visiting team tonight.
“I’m assuming he’s going to get his tribute and stuff like that. Bo made a mistake, and I know he apologized for it. But I don’t think they’ll have forgotten that. It came out very wrong in my opinion, so it might sour the reception a little bit,” Hansen told Bik Nizzar on Sportsnet 650 on Tuesday.
Horvat clarified his comments two days after first upsetting Canucks fans, saying, “It wasn’t directed at them.”
Over the weekend, Horvat indicated that his frustration was with Canucks management, not the fans.
“When you’re told one thing, and the opposite happens, and stuff like that. A lot of stuff that went on obviously didn’t sit well,” Horvat explained, as reported by Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News.
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Hansen isn’t buying it.
“There’s no other way to take this than he was sour at the Vancouver fans for not being able to put a loud building in play,” said the outspoken former Canuck. “Again, that goes back to you’re the captain of this team, you played here I don’t know how many years, you’ve never taken this team to anywhere special in that sense. I’ve heard the building explode. It’s phenomenal. So I hope they give him a sense of that. So, kind of shove it in his face a little bit.”
Hansen even went so far as to say that he hopes Canucks fans boo Horvat tonight.
š£ "A slap in the face of the Vancouver faithful…"
š Jannik Hansen didn't hold back on The People's Show with @BikNizzar when he was asked how fans should react on Wednesday.
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— Sportsnet 650 (@Sportsnet650) November 15, 2023
“I hope they give him the best of both worlds. You boo him when he touches the puck and you make the building phenomenally loud when things go your way. And then you can shove it in his face right back at him, if you will,” said Hansen.
“It was a slap in the face on the Vancouver faithful, that’s for sure.”