And I'm sure the same people that are critics of us are not going to feel sorry for us next time we play Philly and Ronaldo wants to send Crosby to a season ending injury and then get suspended only for 5 games.
At some point after enough frustration you realize caring about the feelings of anonymous nobodies on the internet is the definition of wasting your time.
The one absolute truth I've realized after years of futility exposing hypocrisy regarding the concept of dirty on these boards is this. No one, no matter how morally righteous they try to fool you into believing they are, care about dirty acts. Only, and I mean only the logo and nameplate committing it is what matters to people.
If a player you like commits a dirty act, you will gloss over it and forget it as if it never happened because you're not emotionally invested enough in that player to care. If a player you don't like commits the same exact act, you will care, will remember it, and will recall and reference it even years down the line, because it confirms what you already want to believe. It's psychology 101, textbook confirmation bias. No amount of facts, opposing examples, relevant comparisons will change someones mind when its not a rational thought process, but purely emotional.
Crosby pushing an empty glove away is referenced to this day as reasoning for people to despise him, saying to the media something as benign as "I don't like anyone on that team" gets certain fans blood in a boil, but these same fans love Giroux, the captain of the team, who not 2 weeks after these incidents they so fiercely despise Crosby for, was suspended for intentionally headshotting Zubrus, away from the puck, seconds after openly yelling at a referee for a perceived slight. Hits every box on the checklist of what your typical fan hates about crosby all in one singular act. Not only is this blantantly hypocritical, but the severity of the emotional response in contrast to the dirtyness of the acts is without compare. There is no way to rationally justify these beliefs, thus there is no way to rationally convince people against their preconceived bias. You see what you choose to see.
In the Ovechkin thread on the main board right now someone posed the question of how so many could unjustly hate a player of his calibur. This is how deluded bias can be, these people grossly mistake critcism for underperforming statistically what is expected of you as hatred (certain Pitt fans are guilty of this falacy as well recently). I dare anyone to attempt to make the case the majority opinion on these boards and in hockey fandom in general during the height of the so called Crosby/Ovechkin rivalry, was slanted in favor of Crosby, because I could use the entertainment. Yet even today after the reactions to last night, there are those deluding themselves into believing had that been Crosby slashing Carlson the reaction would be comparitively nonexistant. No, hatred is rationalizing why you despise a player for something as harmless as pushing an empty glove laying on the ice years after the fact, but rejoice and justify when he is crosschecked in the head mere months ago.
Accept that these boards, especially the main one, are primarily filled with the opinion that nothing Pitt does can be viewed in a positive light, regardless of how similar whatever the topic at hand happens to be to acts of other teams and players, even if its one on the other side of the topic at hand, because their minds are already made up before the issue even happened.
Exposing hypocrites can be fun, but if you're emotionally investing yourself in the opinions of literal nobodies who couldn't effect anything beyond their computer screen if they tried, you're just setting yourself up for dissapointment.
Perhaps it would benefit Pitt to be as dirty in retaliation as everyone chooses to believe them to be.