It’s only been a week since the Stanley Cup final, but it doesn’t even feel like there was a game.
The instant that the game was over, all we heard about was the riots in Vancouver.
What an unbelievable sight to see.
Watching the live coverage, the scenes of fire and destruction seemed apocalyptic almost.
I have a number of friends in Vancouver from when I lived there for a few months last spring. Speaking to them the following day they said they had never seen anything like it. One looked on in shock as The Bay store front window was smashed in and rioters ran out with Louis Vuitton bags. Another was stranded all night in Kitsilano after all bridges in the downtown area were closed, forcing her to walk straight to work at 6 a.m. the following morning.
A lot of people are excusing the incidents by saying it was a few aggravators who would have started trouble whether the Canucks won or lost. But the more shameful fact is the number of people who were drawn in by the aggravators and contributed in trashing their own city - a city that I always thought had a lot of pride in itself.
Case in point when I saw someone I knew on an international news website photographed tipping a car with a bunch of other hooligans.
The riots have, quite rightly, been internationally mocked.
The Daily Mail, a U.K. tabloid ran the Vancouver story beneath a story about riots in Greece which broke out last week after an announcement of huge monetary cuts to try and bail the country out of debt.
A headline on the Mail’s website read:
“No, it is not another G20 protest — somebody lost an ice-hockey match.”
It certainly gives the violence in hockey debate a whole new spin.