Srgt. Hulka

I'm really glad they didn't win.


Canuck hockey dream is now Vancouver's nightmare

By Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun June 15, 2011

Flash bangs from the riot squad echoed through the downtown core and acrid smoke from burning cars rolled down Georgia Street.

The images were broadcast live on the television and they’ll live forever on YouTube much to this city’s chagrin.

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu maintained the Robson Street hockey riot of 1994 would not be repeated yet, in the dying moments of the Canucks’ heartbreaking Stanley Cup loss, the anarchists proved him wrong.

As the final game was winding down — angry, perhaps inebriated young men surged towards the giant screen on Georgia Street.

A few bottles were hurled, there was jostling, a fistfight and an eruption outside the Canada Post building — Whoosh!

A car was consumed in flames, the hooligans rejoiced and a mob began to run amuck.

Before police could respond, the windows of the nearby Bank of Montreal shattered, a car rental office was ransacked, port-a-potties overturned...

Public order at Georgia and Homer vanished in the blink of an eye.

Police who had been high-fiving subdued fans found themselves in pitched street fights with those running riot.

Shock waves of mayhem rolled between the high-rise towers.

Cars in parkades were set ablaze, construction bins were ignited, diners were sent scattering as rocks flew through a restaurant’s windows.

It was difficult to believe these enraged vandals were distraught hockey fans overcome by the home team’s 4-0 collapse.

Homer and Dunsmuir became a battle zone for the riot squad.

The ER and intensive care unit at Vancouver General Hospital declared a Code Orange as it was over-run. Staff set up triage in the parking lot.

No repeat of 1994?

The massive crowd of some 70,000 who gathered all afternoon in the hope of celebrating the franchise’s first Stanley Cup victory headed home with more than the tragic loss on their minds.

Embarrassing, disappointing, shocking … they struggled to find words not for a bad team effort but for the destruction and havoc unleashed.

We were supposed to wake today hung over from a Stanley Cup victory; instead the city opens its bloodshot eyes to the much sadder reality of a tarnished reputation.

More than 200 people were injured and there was $1 million in damages back in 1994. Last night’s toll is still being tallied.

Hard questions need to be asked: Were police as prepared as they should have been? Or had they developed a false sense of security because of the quietude and good karma exhibited by the Olympic crowds and during previous games?

Why did this occur? Why were police unable to quickly quell it?


“It’s terrible,” Canucks captain Henrik Sedin said, shaking his head. “This city and province has a lot to be proud of, the team we have and the guys we have in here. It’s too bad.”

On a night he should have been talking only about hockey and a bitter defeat, he wasn’t. He was talking about the skirmishes.

An outstanding season and a phenomenal run for the cup, which came agonizingly close, had been eclipsed by last night’s melee.

This city’s Stanley Cup dream has soured into a nightmare.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/ANA...#ixzz1PRH0KtPt

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, ...

SmashMouth

Kinda looks like Greece right about now!