I am in a bad mood today.

And it's not just because the Canucks are unimaginably down 3 games out of 3 to the freakin' LA Kings, although that doesn't help. And it's not just because Saturday's Coyotes game was a repeat of Thursday's, in many ways, only with an overtime loss instead of an overtime win, although that also doesn't help. But my bad mood is still hockey related.

Why?

Because I think the playoffs bring out the worst in fans. Not all fans, mind you, I don't think that. But I guess I just see a much, much wider line between cheering for your team and being horrible about the opponent.

At Saturday's Coyotes games, the Blackhawks fans were horrible. Again, not all of them. There was a very nice one sitting right in front of us who asked about the whiteout and generally seemed sane. But there was another guy a few seats away, wearing hipster glasses, a backwards baseball hat, and a Kings jersey, who was trying to rile people up from the moment he got to his seat, saying how much the Coyotes suck, etc. Okay, annoying, but whatever. And he did this all game. And he, and a few others nearby, were shouting homophobic and sexist slurs, too. Lovely. (Also? The Blackhawks fans were nearly universally late to their seats all three periods and OT. Is this something of a tradition in Chicago? It's incredibly annoying for the people who are seated behind you. Also, to the handful of Blackhawks fans who thought it was okay to just stand at your seat for the entirety of OT? You're wrong. I was tipsy enough to ask the guy in my way, several times, to sit down, then to just shout at him to do so. He finally did when the guy in the seat next to him told him to.) Then, after the game, this same hipster douche was a sore winner! Rubbing it in in a Coyotes suck kind of way. Fine, fine, irritating but not actually awful, I guess. But so many of them were all, "Suck on that!" to the Coyotes fans. We... didn't do that to the Hawks fans on Thursday, for all that we were celebrating the win.

And I heard much, much worse stories from online Coyotes fans on Twitter who were also at the game. One set of Hawks fans were taunting a mentally challenged Coyotes fans (and ushers refused to do anything about it.) And, naturally, some of the Hawks fans were big on the usual taunts about how the Coyotes won't be here next year.

In the parking lot, Flurry and I passed a group of four Hawks fans standing at their car, smoking, and yelling offensive things to any Coyotes fan who walked by-- mostly sexist things.

(Also, as we were waiting to leave, a Hawks fan took a picture of Flurry's license plate, which, while not rude, exactly, is creepy. I assume he was photographing it because it was a Preds plate, but ...)

I'm also ragey because people are saying that Coyotes goalie Mike Smith was embellishing his reaction to the hit by Hawks player Shaw. Rewatch that clip, people. Imagine you're Mike Smith, head down, as a goalie not exactly used to being hit, helmets knocking together and going ass over teakettle. Then remember that if you were at the game, you saw commercials next and came back to see Smith standing at the net. What did we at the game see? Frightening moments of the Coyotes fans holding their breaths while Smith was curled up into the boards, the trainer and doctor rushing over to him. Jason LaBarbera, back up goalie, was out on the ice, warming up, mask on. Raffi Torres was checking on both goalies, conveying messages from the trainer, I think, to LaBarbera. That Smith played the rest of the game makes him my hero, not a diver. Do I think Shaw targeted Smith? Not at all. But I also don't think that Shaw did enough to minimize contact. Should he have been removed from the game? No idea. The Hawks players have said that the refs said to Shaw that he was evicted because they thought Smith wouldn't be playing the rest of the game. That, I think, is wrong. I think a penalty is a penalty and its consequences should be equal. I would have been fine with 2minutes and a visit with Mr. Shanahan today. (Brendan Shanahan is the NHL dude in charge of player safety, or something like that. He ShanaBans players from games when they've been bad and when he feels like it. Sometimes he just gives fines, which are pocket change for professional athletes, but he can't change the fine amount because it's part of the collective bargaining agreement from the NHL players' association. I'm digressing, but my point here is that Mr. Shanahan and his ShanaBans are inconsistent, so it'll be interesting to see what Shaw gets when they meet this afternoon. And yes, I'm thinking about the Weber incident a few days ago-- Shea Weber ought to have been ShanaBanned for a game or two.)

ANYWAY, my overall point here is I was cranky because Smith is not an embellisher. Smith is FAR more likely to just take matters into his own hands and hit you when you're near him next (and then there'll be a penalty or perhaps a fight and that's not necessarily good either, but it's not embellishing.) So suck it, Hawks fans.

What I'm REALLY mad about at the moment, though is from last night's Canucks game. I don't have a strong opinion on whether Kesler took a dive (probably) or whether the Kings really ought to be playing videos of the Canucks and people diving before the game (probably not) or whether the hit on Henrik Sedin was late or not (I'm guessing not, 'cause Hank himself said it was a clean hit. The man should know.) What I'm pissed about, again, is fans.

I have a lot of Coyotes fans on my Twitter feed and I just cannot believe their vitriol for the Canucks. They're rooting for the Kings, which weirds me out to start with, because hello, you hated them a few weeks ago when they were in contention for Pacific Division Champions and also, do you not remember the Kyle Clifford hit that was totally intentional and took Gilbert Brule out for weeks? And more than pro-Kings, they are seriously, frighteningly, horrigyingly and cruelly anti-Canucks.

Turns out? It's incredibly fashionable to anti-Canucks. I'd heard this, but not really seen it 'til now. To be happy that Henrik Sedin was crawling to the bench after his head bounced on the ice? Fuck you. I'm not happy if players get hurt on any team (with the possible exception if something happened to Patrick Kane because of the whole beating-up-a-cab-driver thing, but that's just karma. And yeah, I wasn't sad exactly that Clifford got hurt in game one, but I wasn't reveling in it either.) So that's one thing.

The thing that has me pissed off most, though, is the resurgence of the "Sedin Sisters" insult. There was a guy behind one of the benches at the game last night who had a t-shirt that said: Sedin Sisters: Two Girls, No Cup. I hated it during the game, but could have let it go, except that today it's been popping up all over the hockey-centric internets. It was even posted by a (female) user on the "Hockey LOLz" thread in the Pucky This! forums on Ravelry (which, for those of you who may not know, is a website for knitting/crocheting/spinning/weaving, but has many forums of users who share interests outside of those, including this group of hockey fans.) I took exception to it, and now I seem to have made some enemies.

Now, putting aside the fact that the Kings don't have a cup either, let's really look at this insult.

First, it's supposed to be an insult that the Sedins are somehow not tough. So... the Sedins don't fight. So what? I'm not going to jump on a bandwagon one way or the other and say that fighting does or doesn't belong in hockey-- that's a different post and a different argument. What I am saying is that fighting isn't necessary to hockey, especially not to players who do something else. Which is to say that the Sedins' skills are in, well, pretty much everything else about hockey (this series with the Kings notwithstanding). If you're happy to have players that do nothing but agitate, why not be fine with players who do nothing but everything-other-than-fight? Again, this is just looking at the logic of hating them, not at the value of fighting.

And have you seen the shit that the Sedins put up with? It's generally open season on them on the ice. They're hit in the back (and the face and everywhere else) all the freakin' time. And all you need to do is look at the iron man streak that Henrik Sedin is on to know that they are not soft. So insulting them for being not tough enough is bullshit-- call it like it is; if you're upset they don't fight, say they don't fight. And if that's something you won't say, then maybe you ought to consider why-- is it because somewhere inside you realize that maybe there's more to hockey than fighting and saying that we should hate the Sedins because they don't fight is stupid?

BUT, even all that isn't what pisses me off. Not really. What angers me is this: It is apparently still acceptable, still funny, to insult someone by calling him a woman.

Think about that for a moment. I mean, really think about it, beyond that it's a traditional taunt.

It says a lot more about the insulter(s) than the insulted, frankly. It's insulting to all women that being a woman is somehow bad and/or inferior.

Feel free to cheer on your favorite teams-- you absolutely, 100% should. Feel free to dislike other teams, for whatever reasons. (I strongly dislike the Bruins and the Blackhawks, or, as I'm currently calling them in text messages, the Broons and the Craphawks.) But figure out where the line is, and more than being a sore winner/loser/bad fan, just don't be a bad human being.

I had hoped that that went without saying. I guess I was wrong.