BOSTON (NEWS1130) – Many people in Vancouver rioted last year after the Canucks lost in the Stanley Cup Finals to Boston. Now, things have turned ugly on social media after the Bruins’ loss.

The 2011 champs’ elimination at the hands of Washington came with a whole lot of racist backlash in the twittersphere. It all happened as soon as Capitals forward Joel Ward scored the winning goal in overtime to knock Boston out of the playoffs.

That goal kick-started a slew of racial slurs on Twitter — comments so nasty, News1130 can’t re-publish them. Some fans have been calling the game hero, who is black, the “N-word.”

The hurtful and inappropriate language is not sitting well with the sports media and NHL hockey supporters.

WBZ Radio Sports Director Walt Perkins in Boston can’t believe it. He says most people in the city are outraged because this kind of behaviour sets the city and sports community back, in terms of race relations.

“It’s unfortunate because Boston, for a long time, has had a reputation; a lot of professional African American athletes didn’t want to come to Boston, thinking that it’s a racist city. Much has been done to overcome that. All it takes is a few tweets and it brings back that entire mindset,” explains Perkins.

What makes the situation even more mind-boggling to Perkins is the fact that there are many black athletes in the city. “Boston has it’s fair share of African American athletes in all sports. There’s no excuse for this, it’s just unbelievable.”

He adds the comments are uncalled for and don’t represent the feelings of all Bruins supporters.

“It doesn’t faze me at all,” Ward tells USA Today Sports.

In a statement, the NHL says: “The racially charged comments distributed via digital media following last night’s game were ignorant and unacceptable. The people responsible for these comments have no place associating themselves with our game.”

“I think it is just kids,” says Ward. “It has no effect on me whatsoever.”