Why Did Hershey Bears Fans Protest An AHL Playoffs Goal?

USA TODAY Network

It’s hard to blame sports fans for getting riled up in situations where they feel like they got robbed by the refs. That was the case with many spectators who watched the Hershey Bears fall in overtime during an AHL playoff game on Tuesday night, which led to them staging a protest before the league released a video that showed how pointless it was.

Most hockey fans are currently focused on the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but there are currently more than a dozen AHL teams competing for a championship as the Calder Cup Playoffs unfold.

That includes the Hershey Bears, the minor league affiliate of the Capitals, who are engaged in an intrastate showdown with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, the little brothers of the big boys in Pittsburgh.

Those two squads headed into the third game of their Eastern Conference semifinals showdown on Tuesday tied at one game apiece, and the Bears were unable to capitalize on home-ice advantage while falling into a 2-1 hole in the best-of-seven series with a 4-3 loss in overtime.

That game-winning goal was not without some controversy, although there shouldn’t really have been any at all despite the scene it managed to spark.

Hershey Bears fans refused to leave their team’s arena and showered the rink with trash to protest a goal that obviously went in

The Bears and the Penguins were knotted at 3-3 at the end of regulation, and the latter only needed a little more than five minutes to put things away after Rutger McGroarty deflected a shot from Sebastian Aho past Clay Stevenson to seal the deal.

YES IT WENT IN

MCGROARTY WINS IT FOR US IN OT pic.twitter.com/6figepj3Hb

— x – Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (@WBSPenguins) May 6, 2026

However, things took an interesting turn after both teams left the ice, as a sizeable chunk of Bears fans in attendance refused to leave the arena and started chucking items onto the rink while booing up a storm due to their belief the puck never actually crossed the goal line.

Anger in Hershey! Bears fans bewildered at how the OT game against Wilkes-Barre ended with a shot that didn’t appear to go into the net @CBS21NEWS #AHLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/n2qVZ023wj

— Tyler Jeski (@producerTJeski) May 6, 2026

Hershey Bears fans refused to leave after Rutger scored the OTW for the WBS Pens. pic.twitter.com/l7ewl7Ilvo

— jlass (@Jlass21) May 6, 2026

It appears the protest can be traced back to the replays that were shown on the Jumbotron, as Russian Machine Never Breaks reports the angles that were offered up inside the arena offered an inconclusive look at the goal in question.

The anger was fueled by the fact that the officials declined to take a second look at the goal before heading to the locker room, but the AHL eventually put the matter to rest by releasing footage that clearly showed the puck had entered the net and bounced off the bar inside it for an indisputable goal.