The Daily Faceoff Show: Mike McKenna Discusses “Fireworks” Comment Aimed At Elvis Merzlikins

On today’s episode of The Daily Faceoff Show, Mike McKenna spoke about a comment made by a fan last night in Dallas about the death of Matiss Kivlenieks, who tragically passed over the summer after being struck in the chest by fireworks.

Here’s a clip of the reported incident…

I believe (not 100% sure) that you can hear the taunt on a video posted on CBJ’s Instagram story last night. I think you can hear “don’t light a firework” 😔 pic.twitter.com/rWqeVFitIN

— John's Plan (@therealholstein) October 26, 2021

And here’s McKenna’s take…

“I look at a pretty serious situation that happened in Dallas where a fan was taunting Elvis Merzlikins about the death of Matiss Kivlenieks, his teammate, his little brother. It was just the most classless, heartless thing any human being could possibly do.

It was a tragedy all around for everyone involved in the Columbus Blue Jackets organization. It just bothers me so much because you hear these things as a player and you try to tune them out and you couldn’t this time.

Elvis Merzlikins said in the media ‘I believe in karma, I felt like I was going to get a shutout that game.’ And then Dallas hits the post, Columbus does end up winning the game pretty handily. It wasn’t a shutout, mind you, but they do win.

And Merzlikins knows as a pretty superstitious guy in a lot of ways. Remember in his first year he wouldn’t speak to the media after a couple of tough losses. That’s gone by the wayside now, but, bigger picture on this, Elvis Merzlikins is playing with an angel on his shoulder right now. He feels that Matiss Kivlenieks is riding shotgun with him and his team, and, Frank, that’s one of the reasons I think Columbus is off to a surprising start.

You always look for inspiration, things to play for. Well, you’ve got a fallen brother, a fallen teammate here, Columbus is 4-2-0 and I think that’s a big part of it.

But, bigger picture here, man, if you’re in a rink and you want to taunt a player, you can do it about the way they play all you want, but don’t do it about something like that. It’s just the worst possible thing I can imagine. Heartless, classless, and I’m really disappointed a fan would do that.

You can watch the full episode here. McKenna’s segment begins at 26:40…