Neighbor calls police on Lightning fans screaming “Shoot, shoot!”

This should have happened to me 1,000 times in my life by now.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
Neighbor calls police on Lightning fans screaming “Shoot, shoot!”
Tampa Bay Times

Chances are if you're a true hockey fan, you've gone off the deep end a time or two.

Personally, I've been known to let the expletives fly at the television while watching a game and sometimes it gets so bad that my family essentially tunes me out. "Shoot! Shoot!", "Move the fucking puck!" "Hit someone!", "OH FOR FUCKS SAKES!"... it ain't pretty. But hey, we've all done it, right? 

Thankfully though, my insane hockey fandom hasn't gotten me into any trouble with the authorities. The same can't be said for Tampa Bay Lightning fan Devon Garnett though. Garnett, a Tampa Bay area super fan, was watching last night's Game 3 action between the Lightning and Dallas Stars with some friends when Hillsborough County deputies knocked on his door. After some confusion it was determined that a neighbor had called the police on Garnett after he and his friends were all shouting, "SHOOT! SHOOT!" at Steven Stamkos during a Lightning powerplay.

“So they came to the door and thought there were guns in the house,” said Garnett to the Tampa Bay Times. “We’re like, ‘Nope, we’re just screaming for Steven Stamkos.’”

Sheriff’s office spokesperson Natalia Verdina confirmed today that officers were dispatched to Garnett's apartment complex after a noise complaint and fears that someone was in trouble. “Four deputies responded and discovered there were no domestic problems at the apartment in question,” Verdina said to The Tampa Bay Times. “It was a roommate screaming at the TV in regards to a Lightning game.”

“(The police) completely understood and just laughed it off,” said Garnett. “But they thought it was serious because I was screaming ‘Shoot!’ as in ‘Shoot the puck.’”

All of this has me thinking, what would have happened if Garnett shouted out some other classic hockey fan lines like, "GET IT OUT!", "DEEP! GET IT IN DEEP!", "MAN ON! MAN ON!" Sounds like the dialogue from a very aggressive "adult video" if you know what I mean. Hey, maybe the neighors would have knocked on the door with a bottle of wine rather than calling the cops? Who knows? This evening could have gone a very, VERY different way for Garnett and his neighbors.

For the full article from The Tampa Bay Times, click below: