A Canucks-Lightning broadcast that aired an apparent fart. A Canucks-Lightning broadcast that aired an apparent fart.
Local NetworksNHLBy Andrew Bucholtz on

Many things have gone wrong for the Vancouver Canucks this season. Following a 5-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning Wednesday night, the Canucks are 18-23-3 on the year, 12th in the Western Conference. They’ve seen lots of discussion about the future of head coach Bruce Boudreau, and even suggestions that NHL on TNT analyst Rick Tocchet might be tabbed to replace him. And there have even been “Sell the team” signs showing up on their broadcasts as a message to owner owner Francesco Aquilini. But what happened during Wednesday’s game was much lighter and funnier, with an apparent fart loudly being aired during play (and being aired on both teams’ local feeds). Here’s how that sounded on the Canucks’ broadcast on Sportsnet:

What was really fantastic about that was how it came during play, but during a moment where play-by-play commentator John Shorthouse had paused after describing a puck dumped down the ice. If this had come during more action, the seeming fart likely would not have been as clear. Here, it had the stage all to itself. And the commentators noticed, with Shorthouse asking analyst John Garrett “Was that you?” and Garrett laughing and saying “No, no, it wasn’t,” leading to both cracking up before Shorthouse resumed calling the action. But it does seem highly likely that both Shorthouse and Garrett were innocent here, as this also was heard amidst Dave Randorf‘s call on the Lightning feed on Fox Sports Sun:

And this seemingly made its way to both radio broadcasts as well:

This led to #fartgate trending on Twitter Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Here are some selected tweets on that:

However, it’s important to remember that this is only an alleged fart, and many have offered alternative explanations:

That fits with other past denials of apparent farts on broadcasts, with some of those even called #Fartgate and even leading to personalized offers of bidet seats. But it was certainly interesting to see this one show up on all of these different broadcasts. And the fart sound is perhaps some level of accurate commentary on both the Canucks’ play Wednesday and the current state of their franchise.

[Lachlan Irvine on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz