A little levity...
You guys have probably seen this pic by now:
The guy's mom had this to say about the picture:
lol
Vancouver. The good and the Ugly.
- Thread starter avatar33
- Start date
Blah blah. 100,000+ people were in the streets to watch the game and of those a small handful decided to cause trouble and a couple or three thousand stood around and watched while they did it. The rest went home like good citizens.
Cities with sports riots aren't some sort of unique phenomenon. It happens everywhere. It will continue to happen everywhere. It has little or no bearing on how livable the city is, and Vancouver is pretty damn livable.
Think of it like this... we have no great unemployment problem, no housing bubble, no austerity measures, the dollar isn't tanking, we don't have bad immigration problems and even then we're used to living with all kinds of people, there's a strong economy with strong growth... we don't have a lot to get pissed off about and occasionally a bunch of dumb twats go crazy about something ridiculous like hockey because they haven't got anything better to rage about.
Nice wake up call for a city that hasn't got a lot to complain about and those caught on video and film will be prosecuted. Big difference between 94 and 2011... the internet barely existed back then and not many people had cameras with them, yet those identified on news footage then were saddled with criminal records that haunted them for years. This time everyone had a camera with them and now the images are circulating online and are being turned over to the authorities, humiliating the people involved and linking them to the crimes they committed. I don't think a lot of people are going to be too keen to do this again in light of this.
In a week or two everything will be back to normal and the city of Vancouver will return to being one of the very best in the world to live in.
The amount of ignorance here is incredible. The only time Vancouver riots is when game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final is lost. This one and when we lost to the Rangers in 1994. Yeah, it sucks, but it's not like there's riots every single week.
The amount of incorrectness here is incredible. The only times Vancouver had riots was:
1935 - Battle of Ballantyne Pier
1938 - Bloody Sunday
1994 - Stanley Cup Riot, Vancouver
2002 - Guns N' Roses riot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada after their concert was cancelled.
2010 - Vancouver Winter Olympics Riot. Over Vancouver's homelessness crisis
The fact is you beady-eyed, maple syrup loving, floppy headed ice chuckers riot throughout your country a disproportionate amount of times in relation to the size of your nation's population when compared to other countries who claim to be as smart and socialist as you do.
America has had its share of riots after our Civil War, but everyone knows we're violent and we wear it on our sleeves. Just look at the respective national animals: Beaver | Bald Eagle.
I'm not your friend, pal.
It's stupid to generalize and say Vancouver is a bad place to live. I like between Toronto and Montreal going back and forth every once and a while, anyone remember the g20? That doesn't mean that toronto is a bad place to live, it just means some shit went down and for that week most people I knew that live in the downtown core (me included) got out of the city for some R and R because it obviously isn't a place you want to be for that short time frame, it looked bad yeah, but after that life went back to normal. Same with Montreal last year when they won 2 game 7 playoff series and each time thousands of people took to the streets, yeah, some shitdisturbers decided to riot of course. In any situation you will have people that push the limit and do stupid shit, but the fact is most of the people are good guys/girls, go home or just stand around and watch (stupid thing to do if the riot act has been read by the way...). It's a sad reflection and a sad day, but in a week or so, vancouver will be the same great city it always was. Just my 0.02
PS look at that video of that guy stopping the car again, here's another video of him, he's fucking awesome, a lot of respect for what he's doing there... the guy that punches him doesn't even get off his phone "One second babe, ok I'm back....."
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0okPB4X9v3Q"]YouTube - Vandal in Vancouver Riots gets knocked out with one punch - 2011[/ame]
There are lots of videos of people FROM vancouver standing up for their city, let's take our minds off the bad for a moment and thank the people that tried to do good...
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp7XvZz05e0"]YouTube - Vancouver Riot after losing Game 7 of Stanley Cup Final[/ame]
PS look at that video of that guy stopping the car again, here's another video of him, he's fucking awesome, a lot of respect for what he's doing there... the guy that punches him doesn't even get off his phone "One second babe, ok I'm back....."
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0okPB4X9v3Q"]YouTube - Vandal in Vancouver Riots gets knocked out with one punch - 2011[/ame]
There are lots of videos of people FROM vancouver standing up for their city, let's take our minds off the bad for a moment and thank the people that tried to do good...
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp7XvZz05e0"]YouTube - Vancouver Riot after losing Game 7 of Stanley Cup Final[/ame]
Coming from someone that spends almost all of my time living in the core of two cities that have recently had riots, I'll tell you this, when shit hits the fan, you don't want to be there, there is obviously an increased risk of danger, but more importantly, police are EXTRA aggressive, so expect random stops, questions ect if shits hitting the fan when you're out and about. It's not about being easily frightened its about making the smart choice....?
This was not so much an act of civil disobedience an attack by police against striking dock workers.
Battle of Ballantyne Pier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
More of the same as above, this time an unemployment sit in protest broken up by the police.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1938)
None of us were alive then, and no one ever talks about these events. Most people don't know they ever even happened. I would hardly qualify them as riots.
A handful of fans smashed the glass doors of the stadium and were subsequently beaten down by the police. No serious injuries were reported and 12 people were arrested. Hardly a riot.
This was a march of 200 anti Olympics protesters. They smashed 4 (four!) windows, spray painted a few things, and were quickly dispersed by the police. 7 people were arrested.
Clearly we're out of control with all of the riots in Vancouver
Decided to watch some more of these.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZzX7JOkAjY"]YouTube - RAW: Hot Girl sets Cop Car on fire (only in Vancouver!)[/ame]
FAIL by the canadian riot police. 2.45 in - you don't just push back one section of the crowd, you push back the entire thing... how is that gonna work?
In fact, watching the rest of the video, looks like the canadian riot police need some better training in general - they're not doing well at all, and at 5.35 they end up having to point guns at people to get them to move back. lol.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZzX7JOkAjY"]YouTube - RAW: Hot Girl sets Cop Car on fire (only in Vancouver!)[/ame]
FAIL by the canadian riot police. 2.45 in - you don't just push back one section of the crowd, you push back the entire thing... how is that gonna work?
In fact, watching the rest of the video, looks like the canadian riot police need some better training in general - they're not doing well at all, and at 5.35 they end up having to point guns at people to get them to move back. lol.
Ok, lets pose a hypothetical question, you're the commander in charge of police strategy, you have a riot going on, and you are outnumbered by WAY over 25-50 to 1 by the crowd (at the bare minimum), how do you push the ENTIRE thing back with lesser numbers and a potentially hostile crowd without seriously endangering your officers health/lives?
I think this sums up nicely what most of the people in Vancouver and Canada are thinking...
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plqafS-ex9U]YouTube - Rex Murphys take on the riots in Vancouver[/ame]
Also noteworthy have been the arrests of several of the people caught on film committing some of the violent acts. Others have been turning themselves in knowing full well that their images are all over the net and that they have been named publicly. Hopefully they don't just get a slap on the wrist but are made an example of.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plqafS-ex9U]YouTube - Rex Murphys take on the riots in Vancouver[/ame]
Also noteworthy have been the arrests of several of the people caught on film committing some of the violent acts. Others have been turning themselves in knowing full well that their images are all over the net and that they have been named publicly. Hopefully they don't just get a slap on the wrist but are made an example of.
