Sports can get contentious, and sometimes competition and dedication to one’s team can cross the line of appropriateness. That seems to have been the case with a bunch of “Chicago Stronger” shirts made for the Chicago Blackhawks v. Boston Bruins Stanley Cup finals .
A Chicago apparel company created a “Chicago Stronger” shirt to support the Blackhawks ahead of the finals, but critics are saying that the shirt is tasteless and makes light of a national tragedy.
Shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing , “Boston Strong” emerged as a slogan for the city, and became sort of a banner for everyone across the nation to pull together in support of the tragedy-stricken city.
So it makes sense that Bostonians would be miffed at Cubby Tees for their “Chicago Stronger” shirts, made for the Blackhawks and Bruins face-off in the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup.
In a statement along with the release of the shirts, Cubby Tees wrote :
“We love Boston and support/admire its people, but don’t believe that the homicidal lunacy of two disturbed locals has rendered its teams invincible. This is about hockey, this is about O-6 pride, this is about the Cup,” the initial statement read.
So they were expecting controversy. They got it with hundreds of Twitter and Facebook users flaying the company for the slogan .
“This is Boston strong, using the strong logo for a parody for a playoff is disgusting,” wrote one Twitter user.
“How someone could even fathom the idea of making money off of a shirt that says Chicago stronger makes me sick. Put the sports aside,” said another.
Cubby Tees responded by pulling the shirt from its website, but also wrote a nastygram slamming their critics for pointing out the apparent insensitivity of the slogan.
“We post this for posterity: judging by the tone/ignorance/froth/grammar contained in most of the notes received, we realize that a majority of the correspondents lack an open mind, earnest desire for discourse or an ability to comprehend complex concepts like parody…let alone polysyllabic words (though some sent thoughtful, well-reasoned messages which we appreciated),” they wrote.
I’ll leave the puck in your court for this one, people. Are the “Chicago Stronger” shirts completely insensitive? Should Cubby Tees apologize instead of lashing out at their critics? Sound off!
