It’s time for Capitals fans to chill out with the Anthony Mantha hate

I can’t believe I’m writing about this. Somebody had to do it eventually. Haters and trolls will label me as “fan police”. But it needs to be said. Washington Capitals fans need to stop all the hate on one of their own players. I’m specifically talking about Anthony Mantha.

What inspired me to write this wasn’t really from what I saw on social media today. What fueled this idea in the first place was what I saw on social media after a Thursday Night Football game. But what I saw today gave myself the thumbs up to drop this as soon as possible.

For those who don’t follow the NFL or those that do, I’ll tell you what happened so we’re on the same page. This is a refresher course for the football fans and a “holy cow” moment for the non football fans.

In that football game was a contest between the Minnesota Vikings and Philadelphia Eagles. After the game, Vikings running back Alexander Mattison revealed on his Instagram threatening DMs from angry fans with tons of racial slurs.

We will not repeat what those “fans” said. But if you want to know more, you can do so here at your own risk. When I first heard about this my first thought was “oh it was Eagles fans being Eagles fans.”

But it wasn’t. These mean DMs came from actual Vikings fans. The majority were angry fantasy football owners and bettors. Now he didn’t have a good game. He had a fumble and dropped some passes while rushing for just 28 yards. But who doesn’t have bad games from time to time? Even Alex Ovechkin has bad games.

Even so, these players are human. Mattison even says himself on his Instagram story that he is “a human. A father. A son”.

Since we’re a hockey blog let’s turn the focus to Mantha. The Caps on their X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram just casually posted a picture graphic for Anthony Mantha’s birthday. They do this for everybody so we don’t forget.

Even though it was Mantha’s birthday, some fans didn’t necessarily wish him a happy birthday. We did the right thing by wishing him one or at the very least provided some words of encouragement. So did some other good fans. But here was the bad stuff. I won’t name names but I’ll quote a few of them.

“If only he blocked shots like he does instagram followers.”

“I think another team should take his contract as a birthday present :)”

“Ship him off for a bag of pucks.”

These quotes are just from Instagram alone. Now let’s go over to X:

“Cut him.”

“(trash can emoji)”

Another “Cut him.”

Luckily our good friend Travis Tuthill made a good point on his quote tweet and I saw more positive comments on X than I did on Instagram.

I mean are we really going to boo or hate on our own players who play for OUR team? What are we? Philly? No we are Washington, DC! We are diverse and inclusive. We may disagree on some things but 41 times a year we all come together as ONE to Rock the Red.

Mantha has a chance to bounce back. He’s lost weight. Last we heard it was 10 pounds but that was a month ago. He might’ve lost more at this point in time. He also hired a mental health coach. Mad he blocked you on Instagram? Well maybe you should stop acting like a Flyers fan, buddy.

My point? Mantha did the right things this offseason to have a bounce back in 2023-24. Now it’s up to us to show him the support like the true Caps fans that we are. We shower Ovechkin with the “Ovi” chants every time he’s one goal closer to the record. It’s time to hit some “Mantha” chants after he scores that first goal of the season. Oh and I should maybe end this article with this: Happy Birthday Mo!