Pittsburgh mayor responds to Stanley Cup Final catfish thrower's arrest with fish puns

Except the whale one. That’s a mammal pun.

Throwing a catfish on the ice at a hockey game is a serious situation, and the mayors of Nashville and Pittsburgh made that clear Tuesday. After a man was arrested for the fishy crime following Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, the political leaders of the two cities released statements showing this is no laughing matter.

First, Nashville mayor Megan Barry came to the defense of Jake Waddell, the Predators fan who was arrested and charged after fulfilling his team’s tradition in an opponent’s arena:

Mayor Barry appreciates and applauds the enthusiasm of our fans. However, as mayor, she knows that it would be inappropriate for her to intercede in a criminal matter locally, let alone ask the Mayor of Pittsburgh to do the same. We would hope that in the spirit of good sportsmanship that any charges for throwing catfish onto the ice would be quickly dismissed.

And then Pittsburgh mayor William Peduto tweeted out this, which is a lot to handle:

OK, so maybe they’re not taking it so seriously.

We also have a lot of comments/questions here about that second statement:

• The dateline says 2018. Was this statement crafted in the future?
• Whales are not fish; do not lump them in with aquatic pals.
• Does cleaning fish actually count as community service? Isn’t that just like someone’s job at the fish market?
• This is easily my favorite example of politicians responding to unnecessarily harsh criminal charges toward a sports fan; making comments riddled with hilarious jokes that were basically made just to be petty.

Anyway, it’s probably for the best that nobody is really taking this seriously, other than maybe the cop who decided to actually go ahead and file a charge of “possession of an instrument of crime” for throwing a dang fish.

And hey, if the charges DO go forward, it appears Waddell is ready to handle it.

“If they want to go down that road, we can go down that road,” Waddell said. “I’m pretty sure we’ll win that battle. I’m just stubborn enough, as you can probably tell by strapping a catfish to my crotch, to go up there and fight it.”

I gotta say, this has been an amazing use of everyone’s time.