@Bmarch63 vs. @ToreyKrug: An Oral History

BOSTON - Neither one of them knows when the next notification may pop up.
But when it does, they're always prepared.
The Twitter duel between Brad Marchand (@Bmarch63) and Torey Krug (@ToreyKrug) dates back over five years - with the occasional back-and-forth jabs - but of late the feud has escalated. And it doesn't appear that it will be slowing down any time soon.
"I've got a couple other ones that are sitting up my sleeve for the next time we start firing off," said Marchand, who debuted his new Instagram (also @Bmarch63) on Friday morning. "It's escalating and people are having a lot of fun with it. We're having some fun with it, too, and we're always excited to see what each other's gonna come up with next and how we're gonna respond. It's been a lot of fun."

Most of the time, the principal point of conflict is each other's height, with the 5-foot-9 Marchand and the 5-foot-9 Krug battling it out over every millimeter.
"I don't remember exactly how it started, but it definitely started over height," said Marchand. "We kind of went back and forth over that. I don't know who fired the first shot, but it's been an ongoing battle that we kind of get into now and again.
"We didn't conspire or anything like that. It just kind of came about. Someone took the first shot and it kind of went from there."
Here's a firsthand account of just a few of the duo's Twitter jabs:

September 26, 2014 | The Step Up Stool

Krug: "It might have been a lot of years back when Marchy posted something from his son's bathroom and that might have been how it started. But he's always been a great sport. I've known that it's always been allowed. He can take it with the best of them because he can dish it with the best of them."

August 29, 2018 | The Fish

Krug: "I had just started fishing and caught a pretty big sized striper…thought that I might never catch that size again. Just thought it would be funny to relate his size to Marchy. It's always fun to jab back and forth at each other's size."
Marchand: "That's a good one. It's not always easy to fire back to. Sometimes he gets a good shot in. There was one that he took at me earlier in the year that I didn't have a comeback to. He won that battle."

January 4, 2019 | The Gel

Marchand: "There are so many opportunities to kind of take shots at one another with something like that. Any time you're kind of in a posed position it's automatic; there's things that can be said."

February 6, 2019 | The Airplane

Marchand: "There's some subtle ones in there. I think he was looking for any opportunity to take a shot. Obviously he saw that, he saw the tweet and looked back and saw Bergy was right behind me, so he felt like he needed to say something. He was sitting right beside me at the time. It's funny how they kind of fired back from one another."

February 18, 2019 | The Sleepover

Krug: "We had a good time with that one, just being in the hotel trying to pass some time. Decided to mention that he needed some stairs to get up into his bed because it was a little bit high for him. He did a great job responding."
Marchand: "I was looking to fire back immediately. You kind of bounce around your room and look for whatever you can, looking for very small things that insinuate a small person. Those are what we came up with. He asked me if he could come over for a sleepover, so I brought a bed up for him…just making sure that it was big enough for him. I think that's a king size bed for him on the floor, so it was a good size."

March 6, 2019 | The Elf

Marchand: "Torey kind of fired the first shot there…he got me. I was pretty excited about that one. It was good. But I was pretty disappointed that he let everyone know my secret."

Krug: "I actually had deleted the Twitter app on my phone and somehow caught wind that after the game the previous night Brad had chirped me on Twitter. Just kind of took the night to think about it and came to the rink the next day and just came up with something. Obviously had to print the label out and put it to work. It came together nicely."

March 6, 2019 | The Response

Marchand: "I was searching all day…had a couple different ideas. The Honey I Shrunk the Kids one, that kind of popped up. I was looking for different ways to put that on display. And then I came across that picture."
Krug: "It was good. I know he didn't know if he could pull it off, but he ended up doing a great job. It was pretty funny."

March 7 | The Final Straw

Marchand: "I wasn't overly pleased about that one. You can take it pretty far. I'm OK with a lot of things, but once you start bringing Bergy in the mix, then that's when you're kind of crossing the line. Next one's gonna have to be a pretty good one when I come back at him."
Krug: "I was actually just kind of trying to give Bergy some press with the Bergy MVP hashtag. But it just came across it on my phone and thought it was funny. I was saving it for the right time, but I had to use it."

The Honorable Mentions