The Toronto Maple Leafs are finally back in Scotiabank Arena and in their opportunity to celebrate the Olympians that went over to Milan to represent their country earlier this month, Auston Matthews was heavily booed.
During a break in play in the first period of the Leafs' first home game since the Olympic break, a divisional matchup against the Ottawa Senators, the team spotlighted the three international stars. First, it was Sweden's Oliver Ekman-Larsson and he got a good and positive response. William Nylander was next and got an even larger applause for him representing Toronto over in Milan.
And then came Team USA captain and gold-medal winner Auston Matthews.
Leafs honour Olympians OEL, Nylander and Matthews (to a mixed reaction) 👀 pic.twitter.com/AnPxlzGaMI
— Ailish Forfar (@ailishforfar) March 1, 2026
As soon as the reference to Matthews winning the gold medal over Canada was said over the PA, calling him a gold medalist and showing pictures of him wearing the Team USA sweater was put on the jumbotron, the crowd rose to a fairly overwhelming amount of boos.
But to calm the waters and not make it seem like Leafs fans suddenly hate their captain because he captained the team that won the gold medal over Canada last Sunday, and then controversially visited the White House earlier this week; the crowd erupted more into a cheer after several seconds of heckles. Maybe it was just those that really wanted to not join the chorus of fans who are concerned that a captain of a Canadian NHL team was at the center of American praise, managed to get a whole lot louder. As seen in the video provided by Sportsnet's AIlish Forfar, a smattering of fans were standing up and clapping, making it known what side of the fence they sit on in regards to the international controversy.
No matter what the reaction was, the Leafs still managed to not really show up on Saturday night against their divisional rival. At the time of writing, the Senators are winning 5-2 after 40 minutes and Matthews had a fantastic primary assist on Morgan Rielly's goal that opened the scoring, but it's been primarily Ottawa's game since then.