VANCOUVER — Brad Marchand is one of best trash talkers in the NHL. In just his first full season in the league, he's already elevated the chirp into a true art form.
But in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday, it didn't take the Bruins winger long to run into a pair of Canucks fans who have truly turned chirping into performance art. Vancouver's now-famous "Green Men" introduced themselves to Marchand midway through the first period after he was sent to the box for holding the stick.
The two fans, who sit next to the visiting team's penalty box for every Canucks game clad in green spandex body suits and masks, do their best to taunt the occupants of the sin bin with a variety of insults, dance moves and props. But they had little effect on Marchand.
"I couldn't hear anything they were saying," Marchand said after the Bruins' practice at the University of British Columbia on Friday afternoon. "They were just muffles through the glass. I wasn't really paying attention to those guys. They pay a lot of money to watch us play, so they can just sit there and watch us play."
The Green Men, who go by the names "Sully" and "Force," claimed during an appearance on WEEI's "The Big Show" that Marchand did take notice of their antics, and that the Bruins forward even squirted them with his water bottle. Marchand had a slightly different take.
"I think I tried to squirt some water in my mouth and I missed a bit," Marchand said with a smile. "A little might have got on them."
Marchand then showed the amateurs what a professional chirper can do, tossing one final diss at the Green Men.
"They like to yell through the glass," Marchand said. "I think they're just embarrassed by how they look, so they have to wear those masks."
