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Boston TV reporter is grabbed from behind while outside TD Garden for Bruins game: ‘Unacceptable’

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A Boston TV reporter in front of a camera was grabbed from behind while outside TD Garden for a Bruins game over the weekend.

WHDH 7News reporter Grant Hermes took to social media after the incident Saturday night when the yelling stranger grabbed him around his chest.

Hermes was doing a standup report outside TD Garden, and the person came up from behind, flexed like he was in the middle of a wrestling ring, and shouted, “Yeah boy!”

As Hermes turns his head, the person screams out “Woooooo!” in wrestler legend Ric Flair style, and grabs the reporter around his chest.

Hermes pushes the guy off, and chases him away before returning to the camera.

“I’m fine. My photog is fine. But I wanna be clear how not ok this is,” Hermes posted on social media along with the video. “The people you see on TV are at work, at a job where people make threats at us regularly. So we don’t know when you yell at us, run into our live shots or grab us, we don’t know what you’re there to do.

“I’m glad this guy wasn’t someone with a gun or a knife or who wanted to hurt me or my photographer,” he added. “But the point is there are those people out there. We’ve seen it happen. So the next time you think about getting your 3 seconds of fame at a reporter’s expense. Don’t.”

The video went viral over the weekend, as news reporters condemned the stranger’s actions and these types of antics involving journalists.

“This is not okay. It’s never okay. So glad Grant is okay,” posted 7News reporter Rob Way.

“This is gross and unacceptable,” wrote MSNBC senior producer Shawn Reynolds. “Let tv people do their jobs.”

Another Boston TV reporter said something similar happened to him during his Sunday morning standup at TD Garden. Two people were yelling swears while Oscar Margáin was on air, he said.

“If you see this and know someone who does this, please educate,” posted Margáin, a reporter with NBC10 Boston, NECN and Telemundo.

The area outside TD Garden, where drunk fans pour out of the arena and bars after games, seems to have a history with these unruly incidents.

“NOT okay and happened to me once after a Celtics playoff game at that same spot,” posted WBZ reporter Tiffany Chan. “Glad you’re okay!!”

Milan Lucic on leave from Boston Bruins after Friday incident

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The Boston Bruins announced that forward Milan Lucic will be taking “an indefinite leave of absence” after he was reportedly arrested following an alleged incident of domestic violence.

“The Boston Bruins are aware of an incident involving Milan Lucic Friday evening. Milan is taking an indefinite leave of absence from the team. The organization takes these matters very seriously, and will work with the Lucic family to provide any support and assistance they may need. We will have no further comment at this time.”

Lucic, 35, spent his first 8 seasons with the Bruins before returning to the club this season after 8 seasons playing for LA, Edmonton and Calgary.

A Boston Police Department spokesman said he could neither confirm nor deny whether any arrest was made and cited public records law that allowed the department 10 days to release any police report on the incident.

The chief records officer for the department, who another officer at the media office told the Herald is the only person who can handle this incident, was not working on the weekend, so the earliest the records could possibly be released is Monday.

This is not the first time Lucic’s been the subject of an alleged act of domestic violence.

The veteran player was questioned by police more than a decade ago for a public altercation with his girlfriend in the North End in September 2011.

A police report then said Lucic was “highly intoxicated and hostile,” according to contemporary Herald reporting on the incident, when he and his girlfriend were arguing outside a Commercial Street Starbucks at around 1:30 in the morning.

The report cited witnesses who said the towering left wing was hovering over his girlfriend, who was lying on the ground, and yelling at her and even throwing her things, including her shoes and her purse, at her. However, the unnamed girlfriend “was adamant about not being harmed,” the report states, and Lucic was not charged.

Lucic told a Herald columnist that “something” was made out of “nothing” in that incident and that “You definitely need to be careful where you are and of your surroundings” and that he would “put myself in the best situation everywhere I go so I don’t wind up in the same incident that happened.”

Herald Bruins reporter Steve Conroy contributed to this story. Read his coverage of reactions from the Bruins organization in sports. 

Reports say Milan Lucic could be returning to Boston
Herald file photo
Bruins forwards Milan Lucic, left, and Nathan Horton celebrate a goal by Boston. Now Lucic is back with the team. (Herald file photo)

TD Garden drops proof of vaccination mandate, still holds onto masks

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Bruins and Celtics fans can now enter TD Garden without showing proof of vaccination at the door, as the venue dropped its mandate three days after Mayor Michelle Wu rescinded the city-wide vaccination ordinance.

“I’m so happy just to have it normal,” said Kirsten Toomey, a fan from Brookline who attended Monday’s matinee game between the Bruins and the Colorado Avalanche.

TD Garden, which is owned and operated by company Delaware North, required proof of vaccination from all attendees starting back on Jan. 15. The mandate lasted just over five weeks, but that was long enough to rub some fans the wrong way.

“It’s none of their business whether I’m vaccinated or not. I’ll take the precautions with this,” said Bruins fan Scott Ridley, who brought a mask to Monday’s game. “So I kind of rebelled against coming to any games until now.”

TD Garden put the policy change into effect just ahead of Monday’s game, but in a statement, retired their mask policy, stating, “the City of Boston Mask Mandate will continue to be in effect, requiring all guests 2 years old and over to wear a mask while indoors, unless actively eating or drinking.”

The home of the B’s and C’s will continue following public health guidelines put into place by the City of Boston, which has not yet dropped an indoor mask mandate. Some neighboring communities, like Newton, have ended their indoor mask rules, but allow individual businesses to call their own shots with face coverings.

Fans trickling into the Garden for Monday’s Bruins game were generally unbothered by the masks.

“I don’t have a problem, I’ll wear a mask. A mask ain’t that uncomfortable,” Ridley said.

However, between eating and drinking and cheering on their teams, stringent mask-wearing can slip by the wayside, some fans have noticed.

“Once the game gets going and the crowd starts going and it’s really exciting, that’s when people want to take it off, and at that point it’s just useless,” said Brennen Fitzpatrick, a fan attending Monday’s game.

Fitzpatrick’s sister, Isabel, expressed some reservations about attending the game without a proof of vaccination check at the entrance.

“It’s great to be here, but it is also concerning as well. It’s a little bit of both,” she said.

Toomey said she also took some comfort before the mandate was lifted in knowing that wherever she went before in Boston, people indoors had shown proof of their shots, but she said gradually moving forward with masks in big crowds is a steady compromise in these complicated later stages of the pandemic.

“It’s got to end sometime, I’m so torn,” she told the Herald.

TD Garden requiring COVID-19 vaccination or negative test for Bruins, Celtics games

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TD Garden is the latest sports venue to impose requirements around coronavirus vaccination for fans looking to attend games.

Fans 12 and older looking to attend Boston Bruins or Celtics games this season will be required to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 or produce a negative result from a qualifying test to enter the arena beginning Sept. 30.

The rules around testing and vaccination apply to anyone entering the building — fans, players, coaches, referees, vendors and others.

Per the city of Boston’s current indoor face covering mandate, anyone over the age of 2 is also required to wear a mask inside TD Garden except while actively eating or drinking, as permitted.

TD Garden officials made the decision at a meeting last week, opting to impose stricter regulations as the delta variant continues to spread, fueling the pandemic in Massachusetts.

“Our primary goal is to keep our fans, guests, employees, players and performers safe,” Amy Latimer, president of TD Garden, said in a statement. “We have worked diligently with public health officials, experts and our industry leaders and have a shared belief that this is the best approach to keep live events going.”

The regulations take effect on the date of the first Bruins preseason home game and less than a month before the Bruins and Celtics start their 2021-22 regular seasons.

The rules will also apply to fans attending any TD Garden’s upcoming concerts, which includes J. Cole, Michael Buble and others in the next month.

TD Garden officials said COVID policies “will continue to be reviewed and updated on an ongoing basis.”

TD Garden officials said they will accept the original Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination card or a digital copy of the vaccination card that can be checked against a valid ID as proof of full vaccination. For guests 18 years or older, valid forms of ID include driver’s license, state identification card or passport.

To satisfy the testing requirement, TD officials will accept a printout or digital copy of a negative antigen test sampled within 24 hours of the event or a negative molecular/PCR test sampled within 72 hours of the event as proof.

The policy stresses that self-administered at-home rapid/antigen tests will not be accepted.

Boston sports ticket prices soar during limited capacity

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The rolling Boston Bruins release playoff prices for season ticket holders Wednesday, but anyone looking to catch a B’s, Sox, or Celtics home game in the meantime should be ready to empty their wallets.

Ticket prices for Boston’s professional teams continue to climb as capacity at venues stays capped: a single nosebleed ticket from StubHub.com to Thursday’s Bruins game against the New York Rangers starts at $233, fees included.

Prefer hoops to hockey? A ticket to Sunday’s Celtics game hosting the Miami Heat starts at $210 — again, to sit closer to the rafters than the court. That starting price is more than twice as expensive as a normal Celtics regular season game ticket, according to ticket broker SeatGeek.

John Higgins, CEO and Owner of Higs Tickets, told the Herald he’s seen ticket prices jump dramatically since venues reopened to fans in late March.

“This week’s games are probably three times more profitable than they were when we started out,” the Boston-based ticket broker said.

Higgins attributes the rise in prices to increased demand as more fans get vaccinated and feel comfortable going back to games. He believes the Bruins’ strong performance has made them the hottest ticket in town — a loge level seat for Thursday’s game against the Rangers is currently listed for $1,934. By contrast, loge-level seats for the uneven Celtics are selling for $864 apiece against the Heat, against another team with a record hovering just over .500.

Despite dreary weather this week, going to Fenway will cost fans a pretty penny, too: tickets for the series against the Detroit Tigers start around $80.

Sports venue capacity will increase to from 12% to 25% Monday, May 10. Higgins said he doesn’t expect to see that change prices very much — except at Fenway Park, which has 37,731 seats, compared to the Garden’s 19,580 seats.

And with new gunslinger Mac Jones coming to town, plenty of fans might be wondering whether it will cost an arm and a leg to snag one of Gillette Stadium’s 65,878 seats for a Patriots game this fall. Even though capacity is expected to reach 100% weeks before the Patriots’ first home game, it’s hard to say how much one of those tickets could cost.

“It’s tough to predict right now. We’re in a weird situation in terms of predicting prices because we’ve never been in this climate before,” said SeatGeek spokesperson Cameron Papp. “I do think in general we’re going to see strong demand for people wanting to get out, and with the NFL and the Patriots, that demand is going to be there.”