DENVER — An excited fan banged on the glass behind the Los Angeles Kings bench after a Scott Wedgewood penalty-shot save in the second period of Tuesday’s Game 2 between the Kings and Colorado Avalanche, leading to the pane breaking and shards showering Kings coach D.J. Smith.
“After the penalty shot, whoever the guy (was) just kept pushing and pushing and pushing,” said Smith, who didn’t have any visible cuts. “I looked back because it hit me a bunch of times, and then it broke.”
A trio of nearby fans said the fan was in the second row and reached over the front-row seats and hit the top of the pane.
“He was basically just wailing on it as hard as he could,” said Avalanche fan Mike McNish, who went to the game with his 13-year-old daughter, Madison, and was sitting in the front row to the right of the broken pane.
“It dropped straight down,” added Kings fan Kyler Croskrey, who was to the left of the pane. “Then we heard it crumble in front of us.”
The Kings bench was not pleased with the development.
“Some of the coaches were a little upset with the guy who did it,” McNish said. “Said a couple choice words to him.”
“A bunch of the players were cussing,” Croskrey added. “They were like, ‘What the f—? Jacks—.’”
Croskrey said she believed the glass-banging fan was initially moved to a new section after the pane broke. An Avalanche spokesperson told The Athletic that after reviewing the footage, staff determined that the fan didn’t do anything ejection-worthy.
The broken glass led to a 19-minute delay. Half a dozen stadium workers shoveled glass away and eventually added a new pane. The Kings all left the bench to avoid the broken glass, with Smith and the coaches returning to the dressing room. Players from both teams milled around the ice. At one point, a group of Kings players knelt in their offensive zone, chatting. Opponents Nazem Kadri and Drew Doughty, both from London, Ontario, at one point chatted while skating around.
Arena crews replace a panel of glass at Ball Arena after an excited fan broke it by accident. (Timothy Hurst / MediaNews Group / The Denver Post via Getty Images)
“I don’t think really anybody was frustrated at that point,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said. “I think maybe the only thing was that there’s so many bodies skating around the ice, so it did wear the ice out a little bit for the rest of (the period). … Doesn’t happen every day, so you just deal with it.”
“Usually (it breaks) on the ice, and it can take a while,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar added. “That’s a different one, but stuff happens. Fans get excited.”
The arena DJ played lively music to keep fans entertained, and the video board showed Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton. The crowd erupted when the stadium workers installed the new pane of glass.
Smith returned to the bench after the delay.
Wedgewood made his penalty shot save on Quinton Byfield, who drew a hook on Cale Makar after the star defenseman misplayed a puck at the blue line on an early-period Avalanche power play.