Not all of the microphones were working during the Philadelphia Flyers and Tampa Bay Lightning game Tuesday night, but unfortunately for one referee, his was.
Early in the second period, Lightning forward Brandon Hagel assisted Nick Paul for a game-tying goal. As NBC Sports Philadelphia replayed the goal, a very audible voice chimed into the broadcast to say, “f*** me,” which was followed by another voice in the background asking if they were live.
Seconds after Hagel set up Nick Paul for the tally, a very juicy hot mic from the ref#GoBolts | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/nnrZG7f2P6
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) February 28, 2024
“The official’s clearly not aware that their mic is open,” one of the Flyers broadcasters added to confirm the hot mic f-bomb was dropped by a referee.
Prior to that f-bomb, the refs probably didn’t need to worry too much about having a hot mic incident because Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center was enduring a power outage. During the first period, a transformer burnt up on the event level of the arena which caused a nine-minute delay. But when play resumed, there were still outages throughout the arena.
One side of the rink was darker than the other, nearly half of the concourses and suites were experiencing outages, as were the broadcast booths and press box. The scoreboard, game clock and public address systems were all out and did not return until midway through the second period. But that referee’s microphone was working just fine.
The f-bomb occurred shortly after Flyers broadcasters Jim Jackson and Brian Boucher celebrated seeing the monitors turn on in the booth, which meant more of the arena’s power was getting flipped back on. Maybe the f-bomb dropping referee’s microphone was part of that same power restoration.
