Today former NHLer and current analyst Kevin Bieksa has spoken out against fans who have relentlessly trolled and bullied Easton Cowan and the Canadian World Junior Team. Earlier this week <a href='https://www.hockeylatest.com/nhl/news/hate-comments-pouring-in-at-team-canada-and-leafs-easton-cowan-after-horrific-performance' class='lien_marqueur' target='_blank' rel='noopener'>Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Easton Cowan faced heavy criticism and bullying online after Canada's loss to Czechia at the World Junior Championships.</a> Cowan and his teammates from the Canadian World Junior Team were exposed to extereme levels of backlash due to the loss against Czechia. Each time Canada is eliminated from the World Juniors there seems to be a corner of the internet that comes out and finds an individual player or a couple of players to blame for the the loss. This year that player for Canada was Cowan after a now infamous screenshot showing him passing up on a clear backdoor pass to a teammate and shooting instead. <div align='center' class='pl20 pr20'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/jjmid04/status/1874984086269517906'> </a></blockquote></div> Cowan also found himself under fire several days before for what many considered to be an odd shootout move in what would be a loss to Latvia during the preliminary round. <div align='center' class='pl20 pr20'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/schlaBAM/status/1872863217174900967'> </a></blockquote></div> With all of the criticism, several people have now come to the defense of Cowan and the Canadian team including former Vancouver Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieksa. <h3>Kevin Bieksa calls out fans for brutal treatment of Easton Cowan and Team Canada</h3> During the most recent iteration of Hockey Night in Canada, Kevin Bieksa spoke out about the World Juniors and particularly the fans' reaction to Canada's loss. Bieksa called out fans and trolls online who demand perfection from these young athletes and are not willing to think about them as people beyond the results of the games. Yeah, but as a country, though, there should be a little bit more support than demanding victory and then when they lose think about all the people that are writing negative things online, Bieska said. Like, who does that? Who writes a negative thing online about a 16 to 20 year old playing their hearts out trying to win? Bieksa of course is right these players at the end of the day are just young kids trying to make their wildest dreams a reality of winning a medal for Canada at the World Junior Championship Tournament that they all grew up watching. They all feel the disappointment and sadness of a moment slipping away like that without fans calling them out via social media. In today's day and age social media will always be around and fans will always voice their opinion even if it is to the detriment of the players they are fans of and idolize. Hopefully some day there will be a shift in fandom to appreciate and build athletes up without tearing them down in such brutal ways.