NHL team comes under fire for ‘messed up’ postgame tweet

On the ice, the Dallas Stars were victorious on Wednesday, defeating the Arizona Coyotes 5-2, On social media, specifically Twitter/X, it’s a different story.

Following the game, the Stars tweeted about the victory. So far, so good, right? It would be. Except the tweet, at best, pushed the boundaries of good taste.

Those who wish to view the tweet, which has a sensitive image warning, can do so here. For anyone else, it’s a picture of what appears to be a dead fox in the middle of a road. In front of the fox is a pickup truck, which for some reason is straddling the two lanes. The caption reads, “Road killed.”

The Stars, or at least the team’s social media admins, were heavily criticized for not only the tweet, but putting a sensitive content warning on it instead of simply deleting it.

This is just messed up…

(Also, y’all would drive in the middle of the road 🙄)

— Howler the Coyote (@HowlerCoyote) March 21, 2024

That’s dark https://t.co/6NY9BmJFyr pic.twitter.com/VZzxXwL2HV

— jason demers (@jasondemers5) March 21, 2024

That’s a fox not a Coyote https://t.co/vXYsh9pbv8

— Alex Micheletti (@AlexMicheletti) March 21, 2024

"don't let the soft fans make you delete this" frankly if having an aversion to seeing dead animals in hd makes me soft then i'd rather be that than whatever you are https://t.co/9kKYkjxqiF

— ziggy (@malkinmoth) March 21, 2024

besties you can still delete this https://t.co/TGCwypwSon

— Caitie Collins (@CaitieCollins) March 21, 2024

https://twitter.com/hischierstyles/status/1770657869060592052

I feel like if you have the wherewithal to double back to add an explicit content warning for a win graphic for a hockey game….

That should tell you that it might be a miss lol. https://t.co/PcuePR1Xyk

— Richard Coffey (@_Rich_Coffey) March 21, 2024

The Twitter accounts of the two teams sparred in the replies. The Coyotes responded, “Might have won the game, but took the ‘L’ on this one.”

Dallas fired back with, “At least we don’t get used to L’s.”

At least we don’t get used to L’s.

— y – Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) March 21, 2024

Arizona also posted a tweet with a screengrab of a Google search for jobs open in Dallas with the caption, “Getting flagged for sensitive content.”

https://twitter.com/ArizonaCoyotes/status/1770659463739093488

[Dallas Stars on Twitter/X, Arizona Coyotes on Twitter/X]