Flyers star Jakub Voracek called a reporter a “weasel” during an amazing tirade on Friday night.
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski, who criticized Voracek in October last year, asked the 31-year-old if this unprecedented season feels different.
Appearing agitated as Sielski spoke, Voracek buried his head in his hands and replied, “No matter what I say, Mike, you’ll write f-king shit every time.”
Teammate Travis Konecky, who was also on the podium during the video call, almost spit out the drink.
Voracek said at the time that he felt “different” this season, paused and continued to scold Sielski.
“I wouldn’t even answer your question, you’re a weasel, it’s not even funny,” said Voracek, a native of the Czech Republic. “Next question.”
The two players giggled briefly, while another reporter began to ask a question about the Flyers’ 5-2 victory over rival Penguins.
Sielski, in an interview with the Philadelphia Crossing Broad website, suggested that Voracek’s anger could have come from a column he wrote last season, when the Flyers were 5-5-1 and they lost their backs.
Sielski wrote that Voracek and his teammate James van Riemsdyk were laughing while head coach Alain Vigneault urged “top players to open the way for us”.
He said he apologized and updated the column after Flyers’ public relations department contacted “because they thought I was writing Voracek and van Riemsdyk laughing at Alain Vigneault.”
If Voracek really laughed at his coach, Sielski wrote in the updated column: “Well, Vigneault has already dropped Voracek to the fourth line this season and maybe it’s time for a Flyers head coach to point out the limitations of two players. the franchise has been considered and treated for years as indispensable “, the other player being captain Claude Giroux.
Sielski, who has been a sports columnist for the Inquirer for seven years, said he offered to “smooth things out” with Voracek.
Looks like that never happened.
Voracek wrote on Twitter on Saturday that Sielski never contacted him after the incident, “because he knew I was going to break up. Believe me, I’d love to [meet] face to face. This was our first interaction since then, “he said, referring to Friday’s video call.
Media access has declined since March, when it was discontinued last season due to coronavirus. Since then, in-person interviews have been banned.
Sielski defended himself on Saturday morning after his previous tweets criticizing Voracek reappeared.
A tweet that Sielski wrote in 2016 said: “#Flyers flights are crashing and it’s Jake Voracek’s fault. My column: “
He said it was a joke.
“There is no column,” he said. “It’s a ‘joke I make all the time.’
Flyers entered this season, which started three months later than usual and is different from any other because of the COVID-19 outbreak, as a popular choice to win the Stanley Cup.
Voracek, who is in the fifth year of an eight-year contract worth $ 66 million, had two assists in Friday’s victory.