Fans keep sense of humour with hilarious reactions to fire during Toronto Raptors game
Fans watching the Toronto Raptors play the Indiana Pacers at Scotiabank Arena over the weekend certainly got to experience a once-in-a-lifetime game, not because of the nature of the play itself but because of an emergency that saw the entire 19,800-person venue evacuated.
An overhead speaker began randomly smoking and emitting flames late in the second quarter on Saturday, with fire crews called around 7:45 p.m.
Because the equipment was hanging over a portion of the crowd, authorities determined that a full evacuation was necessary, putting the game on pause while the Raps had a huge 66-38 lead.
Though it was a complete bummer to the audience, people had some pretty funny reactions to the incident, which was thankfully not all that terrifying of an emergency and in which no one was injured.
One outlet noted that it was an NBA YoungBoy track playing at the time...
🔥🔥 means it’s good too nice 👍🐐
— MO (@Mohamed74260998) March 27, 2022
...leading some to joke about how great (or terrible) the music playing was to make the speaker spark up.
Um no, no it does not lol, it means it's bad
— Noah (@NDrake05) March 27, 2022
Others joked that Drake, the Raps ambassador and regular fixture courtside at their games, must have been in the building at the time for it to catch fire...
@Drake prolly spittin fire
— Kemosabé (@M0stPalone) March 27, 2022
...while still others made different Drake-related jokes about the snafu:
The Scotiabank Arena roof on fire bruh.
— Satyen Gohil (@SKG29) March 27, 2022
And brought in other stars, like 50 cent and his upside-down Super Bowl performance this year:
only one man can stop the fire in scotiabank arena pic.twitter.com/O7NPrvlUfK
— amanda 🧋 (@scottiesbarnes) March 27, 2022
Some are adding the electrical fire to a list of messed up things that happened this weekend, including Drizzy opening up a pack of basketball cards to find an extremely rare Michael Jordan rookie card during an Instagram Live video.
Drake just pulled a Michael Jordan rookie with Ken Goldin on the same night Will Smith wins Best Actor after slapping Chris Rock, the night after the Toronto Raptors light Scotiabank Arena on fire with Ron Jeremy. This is the wildest weekend of all time.
— Ben Carlos (@BenJCarlos) March 28, 2022
And then there are, of course, the comments about the Raptors simply playing too well that night for the speaker to handle:
It’s honestly funny when the raptors were on fire the other night, the speaker never hesitated to take it literally 😭
— Gab-Leah🇯🇲🇮🇳🇨🇦 (@Desigal201) March 28, 2022
And about the firefighters — who Mayor John Tory and others thanked profusely for their work — being a part of the NBA team, or a team of their own:
Raptors game last night- it was like the Toronto Fires 🔥 🏀 last night instead of the Toronto Raptors. Glad everyone was safe 🙏 https://t.co/hwwPnDEVAA
— PAUL R.G. (@Twittpaul2) March 27, 2022
Someone even decided to design a special jersey for Toronto's team to commemorate the little inferno, a historic event:
A jersey to remember the Scotiabank arena fire 🚒 pic.twitter.com/lYbMoeIddL
— SB (@drakecereal) March 27, 2022
Eventually, after sections were escorted out in what appeared to be a safe, calm and organized manner, Toronto Fire was able to put the flames out by repelling carefully rom the ceiling, and the arena was given the all-clear for the game to resume — without an audience, unfortunately — around 9:30 p.m.
The Raps won 131-91, and though fans didn't get to see the epic finish in-person, they were all refunded their ticket price after what was a first for the venue.
"We apologize to all of our fans who made it out to the game tonight and we thank our fans for their continued support," the team wrote on Twitter following the unexpected ordeal.
