Is it New Yorkers? Hockey fans? People on edge? Or just raw tribalism?
This isn’t the first time sports loyalties have provoked violence. Nonetheless, it was shocking, and it’s the sucker punch that has gone viral as America tries to put its Great Pandemic Hibernation behind it.
The New York Rangers lost a hockey game to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Madison Square Garden in New York on Thursday, June 9, 2022.
As fans were leaving the arena, James Anastasio, 29, of Staten Island, turned around and punched an unidentified Tampa Bay fan without warning. The victim’s brother said they’d had beer thrown at them by other individuals before the attack.
Anastasio (shown here in criminal court) also punched a witness who followed him as he fled, the Daily Mail reported (here). He was arrested and charged with assault, disorderly conduct, and harassment.
That’s the last time he’ll ever watch a pro hockey or basketball game at Madison Square Garden, which has banned him for life. His father, philosophical, said his son “made a choice” and “sometimes choices in our lives have consequences. There’s nothing to defend. It is what it is.”
I like that guy (the father) already, even though I’ll never meet him in person. He has his head on straight. I hope Republicans are listening, but I doubt it.