Tampa Bay Lightning: Fans, You Embarrased Yourselves in Game 6

Open Letter to the Tampa Bay Lightning fans: What the heck were you thinking?

It didn't matter that the Bruins were acting like idiots at the end of the hockey game. They were trying to send a message to the Lightning that it wasn't going to be easy in Game 7. That's hockey.

But what occurred after the ruckus was simply unforgivable.

Boo all you want. Cheer your hearts out. Never endanger the players by throwing stuff on the ice.

It's bad enough that the Lightning think we as a fan-base can't generate enough noise with our voices and our hands that they have to hand out noisemakers.

But for our fans, in a fit of celebration or rage—or whatever it may be—to jeopardize the safety of not only Bruins players, but our own guys by throwing said noisemakers at players and on the ice?

No, we're not that fan-base. I refuse to believe it.

I was excited the Lightning won. Thrilled. I was proud of the way our arena was rocking for this game—it's the loudest that barn has been since Game 7 of the 2004 Finals.

We should of left that game proud of our team and proud of ourselves for the support we gave them. Yet, we can't really be proud of how our fans reacted at the end, can we?

I don't blame Nathan Horton for tossing a water bottle at fan (allegedly). If I were him, I would have punched somebody's lights out—especially with one of my teammates getting drilled in the head with those ridiculous things.

We're better than this, Tampa Bay. Yet now, with all the eyes of the NHL watching us, we do something so stupid, so embarrassing that we are now the laughingstock of the entire league.

If the Lightning are fortunate enough to win Game 7 and we get the Stanley Cup Final back for Game 3 and Game 4, I hope our fan-base shows the rest of the league that we're not a bunch of trailer trash idiots (aka Bruins fans).

Lets never allow what went down after Game 6 to happen again.