Elias Pettersson and his Vancouver Canucks teammates just got booed at a Whitecaps soccer game.
Ben Steiner reported this weekend that Canucks players were shown on the big screen during the match, and the crowd responded with boos.
That's not the reaction a franchise wants during a summer it's actively trying to sell as a turning point.
Team president Henrik Sedin has spent recent weeks talking up a different feeling inside the room, pointing to how the group is already coming together.
"With this group, we can already kind of sense that there's a different feeling," Sedin told Sportsnet.
The fans, apparently, aren't there yet. And it's hard to blame them after the season Vancouver just had.
The Canucks finished 25-49-8 last season, dead last in the league at 32nd overall, outscored by 100 goals over 82 games.
Why the boos actually make sense right now
Pettersson himself is at the center of plenty of that frustration, still carrying question marks after his production fell off significantly from his 102-point peak.
He's not the only name fans are watching closely either. Brock Boeser posted 48 points last season with a minus-48 rating attached to it.
Trade rumors around both players haven't gone away, and a stadium full of boos doesn't exactly cool that speculation down.
New head coach Manny Malhotra inherits a fan base that's clearly still processing two miserable seasons in a row.
Vancouver brought in veterans like Luke Schenn and Brendan Gallagher specifically for locker room leadership, hoping habits change before results do.
That's a long-term bet. Boos at a soccer game are a short-term, very public reminder of how far there is to go.
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Is this really about the Canucks, or just a crowd looking for something to boo at a different sport's game entirely? Hard to separate the two in this market.
Vancouver is a passionate hockey city, and passionate cities don't hand out patience just because the front office says the culture feels different.
Training camp hasn't even started yet, and the Canucks are already getting a preview of how skeptical their own fan base remains.
Sedin's optimism and the crowd's boos can both be true at once. Whether that gap closes is what this season is actually going to answer.
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Were Vancouver fans right to boo the Canucks after last season's finish?
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