The last place you would expect to see some feistiness at a playoff hockey game is in the broadcast booth, but that was the case at an AHL game on Monday night.
During the game between the Abbotsford Canucks and Colorado Eagles at Blue Arena in Loveland, Col., Abbotsford announcer Brandon Astle had to deal with an apparent attacker while calling the action on air.
After the Canucks had scored their second goal with roughly a minute to go in first period, Astle was surprised by a fan that somehow had made his way into the booth.
In a clip that has gone viral on social media, the play-by-play man broke from the action on the ice to address the “yahoo” that seemed bent on disrupting him at work.
“Got some yahoo chirping at me from behind. Get out of here. What was he doing?” Astle said on the air as the teams faced off on the ice.
Astle can then be heard calling for calling for security before saying “try that again.”
The commentator then says that the man allegedly threw a chair at him during the incident.
“I’m fired up. He threw my chair at me! Hit me right in the back of the leg,” Astle added. “What was he doing here? Unreal. Have another beer.”
After the game, Astle responded to the incident on social media.
“I could have handled this better, but was in shock & fired up as you can tell, as that has never happened to me before,” he wrote in reply to a clip of the game on X.
“I know that one yahoo does not reflect the Eagles organization or their fans and apparently was found and kicked out.”
The Canucks won the game 5-0 to eliminate the Eagles and advance to the Western Conference final against the Texas Stars.
Abbottsford will host Game 1 on Thursday night and you can bet there will be a bit more security around the booth.