Topic
Hockey itself is a frenzy of violence cheered on by crowds. Should this aftermath surprise us?
Vancouver after game seven. Creative Commons photo courtesy of vfxmonkey.
This wasn't '94. This was weirder, more violent, driven by a lust for digital attention.
Downtown ablaze after rioters run amok following Canuck Cup loss.
Last night in Vancouver a small group of young men, watched and urged on by a large crowd, indulged in a frenzy of violence. And then afterwards there was a riot. Hockey has a very ambivalent -- and increasingly anguished -- relationship to violence. This is a sport in which fights are permitted if not condoned, and which is only now debating whether or not to outlaw "hits" (that is, shoulder charges at speed) to the head of opposing players. This is a sport in which roughing up the opposition is an integral part of the play, and major injuries are common: the league's best player has been out for most of the year with a concussion.
In the season's penultimate game, one of the Vancouver Canucks had his back broken when he was rammed into the boards that line the ice long after the play had moved on; the player who hit him didn't even get a penalty. Every such incident provokes prolonged discussion of the finer points of the game's ever more complex rules governing which types of violence are acceptable (and when), and which are not. There is no real thought, however, of eliminating the violence altogether, as it is acknowledged that it is a large part of the game's popular appeal.
This Stanley Cup finals series between Vancouver and Boston was particularly nasty, with a lot of bad blood between the two sets of players. Boston were the more physical team, and tried to impose their style of play on Vancouver, who were drawn into replying in kind. There were big, violent hits on both sides, as well as endless hacks, slashes, and punches. Much of this went unpunished thanks to some rather inconsistent refereeing.
And then there was a riot. But by contrast with the discussion prompted by the on-ice fighting, the commentary on the post-game violence has been singularly un-nuanced. The people downtown have been uniformly condemned as "idiots." One Facebook status update I saw urged on the Vancouver Police Department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: "Go VPD Go!!! Go RCMP Go!!!" Another was scarier still in its unabashed call for an authoritarian crackdown: "How about a total media blackout and we let the police REALLY do what should be done?" Who are the thugs here? Who are the ones calling for more force, more violence?
We've seen it before
The post-game violence was just about as predictable as the violence during the game itself. The last time the Vancouver Canucks had been in this situation -- in 1994, when they had likewise lost a game seven of the Stanley Cup finals -- also led to destruction and looting. This West Coast city is pretty laid back about most things, but when it comes to hockey apparently we like to riot. There had been much talk in the media and elsewhere about the possibility of a repetition of the events of 1994. Indeed, the riot had been talked up almost as much as the game itself.
In the interval, however, the success of the Winter Olympics last year seemed to suggest that Vancouver could now deal with large and exuberant crowds in the downtown core. In the event, however, none of the lessons of the Olympics were learned. In fact, overshadowed by folk memories of 1994, it almost seemed as though the police wanted a riot; as far as I could see, at least, they were doing their best to provoke one. I watched the game with some friends in an inner city suburb, the West End. As it happens, they live very close to what had been the epicenter of the 1994 disturbances. But as I went out, half an hour or so after the hockey had finished, there was no sign of any trouble. Some people were milling around, but the streets were pretty empty. No doubt many had gone home early, both disappointed in the score and worried about the much-hyped prospect of violence. Though there had reportedly been up to 100,000 people downtown to watch the game, very soon afterwards there were far fewer people out and about. The crowd was certainly nothing like the size it was after the Olympic gold medal hockey game last year, when at times it was impossible to move down some of the city's main thoroughfares because of the sheer numbers of bodies blocking the way.
I made my way further downtown: things were quiet and calm everywhere until a block or so away from what might be the heart of the city, the intersection of Georgia and Granville, where a fairly raucous crowd was gathered outside the Vancouver outlet of that Canadian icon, the Hudson Bay department store. Even here, however, the streets were never too busy to traverse. I could easily have kept on walking; at no point were pedestrians at risk. Around me were a wide and representative selection of the city's inhabitants: young couples; women dressed to the nines with high heels accessorizing their fitted Canucks jerseys; businessmen in suits; old as well as young; many South and East Asians, reflecting Vancouver's racial mix. Apart from the very old and the very young, it was a pretty representative cross-section of the community.
What the police did (and didn't do)
Perhaps surprisingly, there was not much obvious public drunkenness. There was a sense of expectation and some anxiety, a recognition that circumstances might change, but in general people were relaxed: at a loose end, hanging around, waiting to see what might happen. An occasional cheer would go up, and there was some commotion right next to the plate-glass windows of the Bay, but in general at this stage it was quite safe to be out and about.
There were no police to be seen. This was quite different from the Olympics, when the police had been everywhere, interacting with the fans. My understanding had been that here, too, the strategy was to be "part of the crowd." But, if it had ever been implemented, by this point that strategy had clearly been abandoned.
The first indication I got of a police presence was when people started running past where I was standing on the corner of Georgia and Granville, coming from the direction of the stadium, and I caught the whiff of tear gas. The panic soon stopped and the crowd stabilized again, but it seemed that if they were doing anything the police were merely provoking these blind flurries from somewhere on the Eastern perimeter.
Meanwhile, across the street at the Bay, there were periodic attempts to smash the window. But this was a slow, episodic process -- it appeared that there were security guards within the building who managed mostly to keep would-be looters at a distance. At almost any point, this crowd could probably have been dispersed. The number of people actively looking for trouble was very small indeed; the rest were merely at a loose end, uncertain which direction to go.
After another rush, another distant volley of tear gas, and so another panic, it looked as though someone wanted us to move. I wandered a few blocks south, up Granville Street, where I finally caught my first sight of the police: a small group of officers standing at the intersection of Granville and Smithe, who seemed at as much of a loss as to what to do as the crowd. Further up Granville, however, were more clouds of tear gas, prompting people to move back towards Georgia. We were now being gassed from two sides. If there was any particular direction that the police wanted us to move, it wasn't too obvious -- and the small group I saw made no effort to tell us what to do. There seemed to be little if any coordination.
iPads and tear gas
Meanwhile, someone set fire to a rubbish bin on Granville. As there was nobody to stop it or put it out, the fire burned merrily away. People took pictures. In fact, just about everyone had a camera out most of the time; later, I even saw someone holding up an iPad to get a record of events in front of a police line. I drifted back down the street. Shortly, another bin was alight, in front of London Drugs. Across the way, after an agonizingly long time, people at the front of the crowd by the Bay had finally managed to get in to the store and were raiding the perfumery department.
A detachment of cops, I suddenly noticed, were hunkered down in the SkyTrain station opposite, making no moves to come out and deal with the disturbances. They had apparently decided to give up these few blocks of the downtown core, and let the store's private security guards take the brunt of any violence. Meanwhile, the tear gassing was surely provoking more bad feeling, and whenever the police helicopter, hovering up above, shone its searchlight in our direction people turned around and gave it the finger. In short, rather than preventing the trouble it felt rather that the police were provoking it.
It was now dark and I thought I'd start making my way home. It was unclear how to do this, though: there was no traffic and so no buses or taxis. I thought I'd walk east, try my luck with the SkyTrain if it was running, and if not I'd try to pick up a taxi in the nearby suburbs of Gastown or Yaletown. Heading down Georgia, though, I ran into a rather more significant police presence: the riot cops were now on the scene, some on horseback, standing in front of (but as far as I could see, otherwise doing nothing about) a rather larger street fire round the corner, on Richards. They charged the crowd a couple of times, pushing us up the street where another cordon of riot police prevented us turning east on Robson. Near the next intersection, there was another fire in an alley. A man ran to it with a fire extinguisher, trying to tackle the blaze. Nobody helped him out.
Meanwhile, the police had drawn back along Richards Street, making their previous charge seem rather pointless. Indeed, their various barricades obeyed no obvious logic, not least because it was easy enough to avoid them by slipping down an alley. The provided a fairly intimidating image, yes, not least because many of the cops had their weapons out. But they surely weren't making much of an impact on crowd management. One cordon put down their shields and started putting on their gas masks.
I decided I'd seen what I wanted to see and had had enough of being tear gassed, so continued with my plan to head towards the Georgia Viaduct. Along the way I asked one of the policemen if the SkyTrain was still operating. He had no idea.
Allowed to riot?
Walking along Georgia, towards the stadium, I came across more smashed windows (a Budget rental car office; a BMO bank) and two burned-out cars. I think these were the two vehicles that were making most of the TV news. I had earlier passed a bar in which people were happily drinking and watching on big-screen TVs the footage of what was supposedly going on outside. Again, however, it was completely safe on the streets: the only points at which I'd felt at all uncomfortable had been when we'd been tear gassed and/or charged by mounted and shield-waving riot cops.
I passed the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and headed down Dunsmuir towards the SkyTrain station, which was indeed open, but my way was blocked by yet another cordon of riot police. They said I had to do around: so I went half a block, up an alley, and back again. It's as though the cops were actively making it difficult to leave downtown, for no obvious reason.
In contrast to their absence on the streets, the police were present in force at the SkyTrain stations, picking off people for questioning if they felt they looked suspicious. Again, this seems to have been their plan: to occupy the periphery and let a rather small section of downtown Vancouver riot, while they lobbed in the odd tear gas canister and observed from the sides and on high. It seems obvious to me that this made things much worse, rather than better: it did nothing to stop the violence, and criminalized the whole crowd, succeeding only in irritating the vast majority of people, who were mere bystanders hanging out because there was little else to do.
Cheers and jeers, blood and broken hearts
Frankly, I'm surprised that the disturbances weren't worse; most of the crowd behaved remarkably well, considering that from almost the outset the forces of law and order had decided to treat them as though they were really, as the media alleged, some kind of mob.
Of course, it's easier to portray the people on the streets as a mob, and blindly to cheer on the police, than to think about the violence with any kind of nuance or self-reflection. This demonization of the post-game violence is no doubt a safe outlet for the pent-up energy of so many disappointed Canucks fans: they have a target for their frustration, and they can feel so very civilized in expressing their anger.
It's easier to grab this moral high ground, to claim that the so-called rioters do not represent Vancouver, than to stop and consider the ways in which violence is engrained in this sport on whose bandwagon they are hitched, or the conditions that gave rise to the post-game disturbances -- and the many ways in which it could have been avoided.
But let's give these concerned citizens some slack. They need their moment of mindless outrage, too. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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elbillug
1 year ago
oh please
First of all this nonsense about hockey inciting crowd violence. By your standard every boxing and ufc fight would end up in riot, and no soccer game ever would. Reality shows the opposite though. But let's blame the game for the violence.
And to say that the police wanted the riot? Do you really think they look good right now? Seriously - to think that in any way this was a desirable outcome by them?
Lastly, on the "it wasn't that bad" part of your article. Just London Drugs said that damage on their store will top 1 million, 1 person might die and another 150 got injured. So you think hockey is violent and what happened outside wasn't that bad????
Sigh. Bad enough to have the riot - to have someone dismiss it as no big deal is simply absurd.
Charles Campbell
1 year ago
See elsewhere
I just wrote a comment on Mark Leiren-Young's story about how people project their ideology onto both hockey and violence. I'm with elbillug.
VivianLea Doubt
1 year ago
violence...
I believe the idea that violence begets violence is a little more nuanced than than your read of the author as saying hockey incites violence.
In any event, I remember a different game of hockey than the NHL version, a game where play and sportmanship were all. How could that possibly be true of a 'game' that is now big business? Very big business. What part of hacking and slashing, the dramatic increase in concussions - not to mention a broken back - do you commenters not see as violent? It is not that the violence of hockey gives anyone license to commit violence, it is the fact that the game violence is not just tolerated, it is celebrated, and players are not just rewarded, they are wealthy, as well as holding iconic status in a certain segment of the society. When a culture is celebrating and rewarding violence in hockey, how can it condemn violence in the streets as 'just idiots'?
I don't really know how the police behaviour was, but it stands to reason it could have been improved upon. And most assuredly I think the riot was a horrific event. I just also believe that if you want people to obey the law, you had better enforce it in millionaire hockey players, too.
jbmurray
1 year ago
replies
Thanks for your comments. Please note, however, that I don't blame on-ice violence for what happened after the game; as VivianLea points out, that would indeed be just as simplistic as trying to bracket off the on-ice violence altogether. But of course there's a lot that could be said about the topic. In fact, if anything I was saying that we might learn from the relatively nuanced discussion of violence within the game so as to avoid the goonish call for police repression outside the game.
And as for that violence on the streets, my point was to say that it was far from the "mob rule" so hyped by the media both before and after the event itself. I was suggesting that, rather than conjuring up a bona fide riot, the police had plenty of chances to intervene and calm things down. Instead, they criminalized the entire crowd (and most of those injuries you mention were the result of the tear gas).
Take London Drugs: I was standing right by this store, and saw the very first attempt to break its glass window. This was at a very late stage, in that for the previous hour or so most of the attention had been on the Bay, over the road--which itself was very much a slow-motion looting. In the meantime (as I record in my piece), before London Drugs was ever touched two trash cans were set on fire nearby. At no point did the police do anything about this incremental escalation, though the opportunity was there. Instead they were hiding in the SkyTrain, lobbing tear gas from round the corner, or looking down from their chopper up above.
They may not have wanted to provoke a riot, but the way they went about things pretty much ensured it.
And to Charles: people's view of events is indeed shaped by their prior experiences. I'm just rather fed up of the jingoistic and unthinking response that has predominated in the media, mostly from people who were nowhere near the events themselves.
Fish-counter
1 year ago
It happened. Again. Vancouver cops were NOT prepared.
I am very bitter towards the Vancouver cops.
They can Taser a guy to death and watch him expire without checking his pulse once.
They can spend a billion on security for the Olympics, including all the riot gear imaginable.
Then they stand by and watch as 1,000 young men burn cars and smash windows and loot downtown stores. They stood there, by the hundred, watching the fires burn and the glass break.
Where was the planning?
Where was the prevention?
Where was the intel that would have indicated riot conditions?
Where was the crowd control?
When the Bruins scored first, every available cop should have been called in to work.
There was no attempt to predict this problem. In my opinion, the cops were as much to blame as the rioters because they were completely incompetent.
This was completely predictable. The cops should have been in the crowd like flies on jam and they should have arrested everyone who looked like causing trouble.
In my opinion the cops let this happen to justify their own existence. Now they will ask for more sweeping powers to deal with unrest.
If you add up all the Vancouver cops who have been charged with drunk driving, assaulting members of the public and running down motorcyclists, you get an astounding number.
When the cops are rotten to the core, as is my contention, and the hockey players get away with assault on the ice, is it any wonder that they command so little respect?
Did Vancouver ask for this? I should bloody well think so. And they got it. And they will get it again until the hard-headed macho sh*theads who call themselves police chiefs are replaced with intelligent human beings.
elbillug
1 year ago
re: replies
Your article clearly connects the on-ice violence with the riot, I've re-read it a couple of times and I don't think that there was any ambivalence in the way it was written.
When things get out of hand, the only thing left for the police was to treat everyone as part of it. I learned at a very early age that when things look like they are getting out of hand - my first action should always be to get myself out of the place. People hanging around wanted to be part of it - their participation varies greatly - but there are no innocent bystanders at that stage. Everyone one there last night knew very well what was unfolding, and it was not peaceful protesting. A lot of people left, but a lot of others, yourself included, decided to stay, if for nothing else, to witness the riot firsthand. To say that the police didn't do a good job distinguishing the 'good people' from the 'bad people' is very disingenious. No one was announcing before they started vandalizing things. If your intention was to just take skytrain, wouldn't Burrard station have been a better choice?
I completely agree that the police did not respond correctly to the events and let things get out of hand (and there's a catch-22 for them here. If they are harsh in the beginning and nothing ends up happening - then they would be blamed today for their excessive behaviour). But unlike other posters, I don't think it was on purpose. I learned a phrase a long time ago that I believe is true here also: "Don't attribute to evil intent what you can explain by stupidity". The police was incompetent plain and simple and, in their defense, it is hard to be well prepared for something that has happened two times in a 17 year span.
MkumbaJoe
1 year ago
CBC
You would think with a game as violent as hockey, the broadcaster of it, CBC-TV, would put in "cool" ads between the hockey battling.
On the contrary, the selected ads were for violent movies that made the hockey look like kindergarten activities in the play box.
No doubt in a few weeks they'll be a CBC Ideas program on how to combat violence in the media :).
And here's a broadcaster fighting for its credibility in Canadian society!
Fish-counter
1 year ago
Have you heard the song about the bold gendarmes?
They only arrest the feeble and the prostitutes but they leave the real trouble-makers alone. I think that sums it up.
jbmurray
1 year ago
re: replies
elbillug, yes, I think there's a connection. It's foolish to bracket off the on-ice violence. But this is not the same as saying that there's a direct causality. The fact that (say) Brad Marchant punched Daniel Sedin because he just "felt like it" doesn't make people smash a plate-glass window in downtown Vancouver, no. But there is a commonality there. And people are happy to make excuses or provide rationales for the guys on the ice, but have responded very simplistically to the violence on the streets.
As for the policing: no, I don't think that criminalizing the entire crowd, while lettering individual acts of violence go unpunished, was a smart move. Not in the slightest. The relationship between the crowd and the violence was (from what I saw) fluid and dynamic. But most people were, I think, just at a loose end; police tactics made it more likely that that would tip towards violence.
I'm not saying that policing is easy, but in fact the VPD has done a pretty good job not just during the Olympics but also increasingly in the downtown "Entertainment district" at the weekends, where drunkenness and violence is a routine expectation. Some of the knowledge and experience gained in that environment would have come in more than handy here.
Alan Abel
1 year ago
The logical lines don't connect
I'm with the first couple comments. Blaming hockey for what happened Wednesday night is a dubious induction at best. I agree the changing nature of violence in game has social/cultural implication and needs to be addressed, but the riot question is too complex to be making simple reductions. There was a day in the NHL when bench clearing brawls were the rule, not the exception, and I don't recall corresponding riots in the streets or during that darker era of hockey.
As for the police response to the riot, Jon is quick to condemn, but based on what? A hunch? Or a predetermined bias that police are bad? I can tell you this much, if cops had waded into the crowd and started busting heads, it would have been a lot worse. They chose a more restrained strategy, and even civil libertarian David Eby has commended the police for their handling of the night. The progressive-left has an almost knee-jerk reaction when it comes to police, and I think in this case we need to appreciate the restraint they exercised and the good job they did given their limited, outnumbered resources.
Grania
1 year ago
This was not hockey
Once again I wish to have some comments on these playoffs. I have never watched hockey and did so this year at the invitation of friends. Even I could see the unfair bias of the referees, particularly in Boston, to the point where I asked if there was some kind of conspiracy? Well...apparently the NHL is losing money in the US and the League wanted an American team to win thus improve attendance at games and improve profits for the League. There is no doubt the Bruins have the better goalie. There is also no doubt that the playoffs, by and large, appeared rigged to me against the Canucks. ?? There is no doubt I will never watch hockey again....
raging senior
1 year ago
Stanley Cup final
Who gave the people of Vancouver the idea to have a riot? The news media. The media kept refering to the riot in 1994, if the media had not kept refering to the '94 riot, most of the people in the downtown gatherings were about 10 years old in 1994 and would not have known the history of '94. Today the NEWS MEDIA seem to be intent on making the news, not just reporting the news. In my opinion if the Media had left the '94 happening alone not as many people would have come armed for a riot. How many people keep gasoling in containers in their cars, the same goes for recking bars. Go figure.
freebear
1 year ago
Pro hockey sells beer (aomg other things)
Which some people began drinking in the morning!
Fans/consumers were also invited downtown to spend money; which to many meant drinks!
Also the riot spectators taking their souvenir photos meant that the riot looked twice as large; at least until they had their fill of posed photos (hours for some it seemed).
The riot in person 'spectators made the police's job more difficult; distinguishing between watcher and rioter.
Even the couple embracing/kissing; while poetic/ironic amongst the rioters and police; why were they there? Whydid they not leave and embrace at home.
Seems everyone seeks celebrity status-see me kissing in a riot; see me dancing on a burning car!
If they invite that many next time; maybe there should be a no alcohol zone of a 5 mile radius-oh wait, not enough money, not being made that way!
freebear
1 year ago
Among other things!
I meant to say!
VivianLea Doubt
1 year ago
repeat once more...
"And people are happy to make excuses or provide rationales for the guys on the ice, but have responded very simplistically to the violence on the streets."
Yes, there is discussion about the violence in hockey, but an entire city - country - western civilization doesn't screech that they are idiots, or anarchists, or otherwise imply that they are the scum of society. Clearly and obviously there is a double standard for acts of violence on the ice, and acts of violence on the streets. Why?
To ask the question, or to draw the readers attention to this does not imply supporting the rioters. Just the contrary, it implies that we should pay attention to what we promote and hype and richly reward in our culture if we do not want others to emulate the violence beyond the hockey rink.
Alan Abel
1 year ago
VivianLea Doubt
It's not a true double standard when you're talking about apples vs. oranges. Professional athletes enter into contracts and accepted codes in agreeing to play a contact sport. It's why you rarely see assaults on the ice taken up in courts of law. I see the point you are aiming at and I support a serious social dialogue on violence in sports, but random acts of violence and vandalism that break out on the streets is not the same kettle of fish. The fact that sometimes these riots break out alongside, or in response to contact sporting events is more coincidental than causal and should be analyzed as such.
Returning to your question about violence in sports, you're going to have to expand your scrutiny to include all contact sports: football, rugby, boxing, lacrosse, Olympic judo & wrestling etc.... I personally feel the issue (especially our national sport, hockey) is too embedded in our culture to affect change. Just when you've successfully gotten the NHL BOG to revisit the issue of head shots for the umpteenth time, along comes the next MMA event rolling into town. My best way of protesting any of this is simply to not buy a ticket. I wish more citizens would do the same.
freebear
1 year ago
All those 'sports' sell beer!
Beer is the common denominator!
VivianLea Doubt
1 year ago
causal?
No where have I said, no do I believe, that violence in hockey (or any other 'sport', or video games, or television, or the desire for 15 minutes of facebook fame) causes violence. But it is a 'rationale' to say that "Professional athletes enter into contracts and accepted codes in agreeing to play a contact sport." I suppose we could ask the player with the broken back if he would trade his vertebrae for a Stanley Cup - the point is, he didn't sign up for a broken back. However, even if he did, as a society we should not be willing to let young men make these deals.
Why should we allow the NHL - or any other sports organization - to decide what we as a society find acceptable, or not? I long ago stopped supporting hockey - as in I no longer even watch, in spite of growing up in a hockey family and playing the game. The point of the article, as I read it, is precisely to encourage a discussion of violence that is accepted (professional sport), and violence that is not (rioting). I confess I find it bizarre that acts of violence on the ice are rarely punished by law, yet we leap to find the police at fault for failing to curtail rioters.
I do not think that a society can have it both ways, but I do not believe that anything is too embedded in our culture to change - I am a student of sociology, anthropology, and history, and much has changed through the centuries. Nor do I believe that 'beer' is the common denominator, for I love beer, and yet I have never been known to engage in violence. In other words, a more than superficial analysis is required here if we truly want such events as riots in Vancouver to be no more.
freebear
1 year ago
Would a 100,000 potheads rioted?
I bet the downtown would have more flowers after the game, than before! Rather than busted glass and burnt cars!
elbillug
1 year ago
VivianLea Doubt?
I agree with Alan. You can't compare something that happens between willing adults, with random violence such as riots. We can discuss whether the adults really should be allowed to get into those situations, but it is always a slippery slope on who gets to decide what's acceptable (between willing participants). We can't outlaw danger.
You say that the NHL is deciding what society finds acceptable - you're deciding that your view is shared by society. And in this regard, I think you're wrong. NHL is a for-profit enterprise. They have no interest in setting standards, their standards are whatever they think will provide them with the most revenue. In this case it includes allowing (limited) fighting, and other violent actions. If people stopped watching (a true indication that society disagrees with their rules) then they would change the rules in a snap.
If we did ask players whether the risk of breaking their vertebrae was worth the Stanley Cup - I think you'd be surprised at the answers. It is a well known phenomenon that elite athletes are willing to put everything on the line (maybe that's what makes them get to that level...). It's called the "Goldman Dilemma" after the researcher that surveyed elite athletes and regularly found that >50% answered yes to: "Would you be willing to sacrifice your life for a win - by taking a drug that would ensure your victory and then kill you in a few years".
VivianLea Doubt
1 year ago
comparisons
I can and do compare hockey violence with other violence, as do many others. I am one of those that believes that violence begets violence. I do not think my view is shared by society at all, otherwise there would be no NHL style hockey, for sure. And you are absolutely right that the NHL is attempting to maximize revenue. So were the looters in downtown Vancouver.
Would I be surprised that 'elite' athletes would be willing to trade their lives, their health, their bodies for a few minutes of 'glory' among a certain set? No, I am not. That does not mean I find it acceptable, nor intelligent, nor civilized.
I have no objection at all to the fact that you voice your opinion, and I shall do the same. Whether my view is shared by many, or few, or no one, for that matter, I shall continue expressing my opinion. A culture that glorifies 'winning' at any and all costs is not a culture I want to live in. We see it every where...in professional sports, in entertainment, in politics - something to the effect that the end justifies the means. What the issue is here is why this is acceptable in NHL hockey, but not in looters post-game.
G West
1 year ago
As someone who 'has' played hockey
I'd say that the vast majority of the people I know who've also done so would not hesitate for a moment before rejecting the proposition that a Stanley Cup ring could ever be 'worth' a broken back. These people are adults.
In contrast, the people who play professional sports are, for the most part, victims of a retarded mental development or a deprived childhood filled with phony values.
You can hear those ‘values’ being trumpeted on ‘Coach’s Corner’ every Saturday night.
As regards Jon’s article, I find his on the spot observations to reflect my own impressions of the events of last Wednesday evening very accurately.
The police policy (if one can call it that) of failing to have members of the force out and in highly visible locations before the end of the game is a clear failure to appreciate and understand the dynamics of mob behavior in similar circumstances…had the appropriate planning been in place and security checkpoints been manned ‘before’ what became a ‘riot’ had a chance to start (including having NO VEHICLES – especially police cruisers anywhere in the area) this situation would not have escalated into the event we are now discussing.
Further, the dynamics of an afternoon of hard drinking without emotional outlets for what cannot be denied was a media-whipped frenzy, cannot have failed to play a role.
Vancouver, as the Olympics showed, is, if nothing else, a world class city when it comes to public drunkenness.
Bringing together a huge crowd of young, overly excited ‘sports’ fans whose alredy marginal inhibitions have been put on hold by an afternoon of drinking while their expectations of victory and glory were already whipped to a froth by an uncritical and analytically ignorant media was bad enough. Ignoring the volatility of this mix by ordering the police to go into hiding wasn’t just foolish, it was insane.
Jon’s thoughts are spot on – this could have been much, much worse.
I'd like to hear your views about the role the media played in the whole sorry spectacle.
Thanks.
a6rian
1 year ago
Gosh
Gosh, what a lame and superficial article.
So you don’t like sport or the police and take the riots as your chance to bash both of them?
How lame is that? Guess you are the kind of academics that worships Chomsky and the like. Sorry to crash your party—but there’s no link between sports and riots and I’d rather read news about people that cover police cruisers with “Thank you” postits than your lame political rant. Because the VanPD has done a fucking great job!
http://on.fb.me/thankyouvpd
G West
1 year ago
No link between sports and riots?
Really?
I don't normally use wikipedia as a source, but 29 pages of references is just too much of a temptation to resist.
Have a look.
Sports and riots are blood brothers under the skin...always have been, always will be.
Did you have a point a6rian?
And, while you're at it, please understand that someone who criticizes the command and control decisions of the Vancouver Police Service is not, by definition, criticizing police officers or their behavior on Wednesday night.
In fact, the police behaved well - which is not to say that they were deployed and used properly.
The so-called 'strategic' plan we were so often told about to deal with a crowd of more than 100,000 people (a significant portion of whom were drunk) was, frankly, a very bad joke.
G West
1 year ago
Oh, here's the wikipedia link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Sports_riots
Just for you!
jbmurray
1 year ago
a couple more things
Thanks to all for your responses, and for the discussion. A couple of things:
* To a6rian: I am indeed a sports fan. I have also been impressed both by how the VPD managed the Olympics crowds (a policy they said they would follow here, but failed to do so), and by how they manage the regular weekend drunkenness and latent violence on Granville Street.
* Again, I am not claiming that on-ice hockey caused the post-game riot. It has been pointed out that the subhead "Hockey itself is a frenzy of violence cheered on by crowds. Should this aftermath surprise us?" may perhaps give that impression. This was written by the Tyee editors, not by me. My point rather is that you cannot bracket off the on-ice violence, and that thinking about the ways we discuss violence within the game may help us as we try to think about the violence after the game.
* In fact, it's remarkable in some ways (and admirable) that hockey generally doesn't generate a culture of post-game violence, except for these major set-pieces. But when the violence does break out, it is all the more spectacular and all the more difficult for most people to digest.
* It has also been pointed out to me that things may have been different at the start of the riot, nearer the Georgia viaduct and the Post Office. That may well be so; I can only report on what I saw, a little bit later and a couple of blocks to the West.
* It's also worth pointing out that the city didn't seem to have a plan for what to do with 100,000 people once the game had ended. This despite the much-hyped and anticipated violence. For most young people, 9:30pm is not an obvious time to start going home, especially when the transit options were limited. And yet the bars were full and there was little to do. They were at a loose end, hanging out, and became a natural audience for opportunists. A friend of mine suggested the city should have organized music events, DJs, celebration sites as with the Olympics. Sounds like a good suggestion to me.
* Finally, my main point is that there needs to be a proper and nuanced discussion of the events that refuses to demonize the crowd downtown, and that refuses to claim that they were somehow not the "real" Vancouver or "real" hockey fans etc. Also a discussion that isn't so paranoid (in such a small-town way) about Vancouver's image abroad. Here's a blog post--by a UBC student--that helps start that discussion: http://blogs.ubc.ca/yamyam/archives/704.
Again, thanks for reading and for your comments.
elbillug
1 year ago
re: jbmurray
" Finally, my main point is that there needs to be a proper and nuanced discussion of the events that refuses to demonize the crowd downtown, and that refuses to claim that they were somehow not the "real" Vancouver or "real" hockey fans etc."
I don't think MSM demonized the croud any more than saying that they participated in a riot. Which is absolutely true. The "real" Vancouver and "real" hockey fans stuff I only heard on people's feedback to these stories. And that is a standard response for a lot of people: denial.
You seem to want to exempt the crowd there of any guilt, and separate the 'rioters' from the 'onlookers'. Sorry - that doesn't work. At 8pm the first car was on fire. There was no 'several hours of people doing nothing' before it started. At 8:01pm everyone that did not want to take part in it (active or passive) had left the downtown core. Everyone left at 8:02pm knew what was unfolding and wanted to be in it (active or passive). The big crowd that stayed helped the rioters by giving emboldening them - they know they could strike and just fall back into the crowd and hide. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you helped them with that by hanging around.
I'm not saying the police isn't culpable. I think their response was sad to say the least. But that in no way takes away from the crowd's blame in this.
galianoandometepe
1 year ago
Part of the problem, not part of the solution
Unlike the people who were caught downtown after the game because that was where they were when it ended (and the rioting began), you sought this out. You made the crowd bigger. You made the police's job (sorting out the rioters from the onlookers) more difficult. You should at least own that.
Among the others who took a more active role were middle-class children of privilege - like the 17 year old, private school grad, armed with a university scholarship for the fall who set fires, or the UBC student who looted the tux rental place, or the high school student from Richmond who smashed & looted - make no mistake, they are representative of what is supposedly the best of greater Vancouver, as are you, a university professor who, frankly, should have known better.
As I am not a hockey fan, my "outrage" is hardly tied to any disappointment over outcome of the Stanley Cup final. It is that (mostly) young punks deliberately set out to destroy property and loot for "fun", and people like you aided and abetted this senseless action.
dorothy
1 year ago
Now that the talk is of violence...
"Clearly and obviously there is a double standard for acts of violence on the ice, and acts of violence on the streets. Why?"
Maybe it could be said that the recipients of violence on the ice put themselves into the fray. Hockey players know what they may face, and accept that it is part of what they get very well paid for. It is their shared prerogative to change this if they wish. Terrified young women behind a coffee-shop window, who are witnessing someone breaking that window in front of them from the outside, and must be wondering what will happen to them once the barrier is gone, can hardly be said to have put themselves in harm's way, nor are they collecting paychecks to make up for their trauma. That's why the same standard does not apply.
However, that being said, our society is permeated by a notion, maybe not of outright violence, but certainly the idea that might makes right. Physical might, economic might, you name it. Where does the 400 pound gorilla sit? where he pleases. Mwa-ha-ha. I am sure the miniature monkey fails to see the humor. We live in a city, where a large part of its present and future population see themselves booted out of the market for a home of their own by economic might coming from the other side of the globe. A real estate agent even had the gall to rub salt in people's wounds, telling them in some grossly condescending way that 'if they weren't prepared to be part of the beauty and prosperity here and pay the price, maybe they ought to live somewhere else.'
Community, anyone?
Yes, there is violence of this kind and that in our fair city, both on and behind the scenes...There are double and triple standards abounding. But the bottom line is that no matter what everyone else does and says, we each have one choice left that is free and available for the taking. We can choose to pick on somebody our own size. And I believe the failure to ensure that the 'fun' the other night observed this rule was what made the good citizens so pissing mad the day after. Picking on somebody smaller, you see, is another, and no less ugly, kind of double standard.
Fish-counter
1 year ago
I would like to hear Gary Bettman give his perspective on this
He is probably not used to being booed like that. It was graceless.
Plicata
1 year ago
Responsibility
This article seems to reflect a general notion on the left (where I dwell) that only authority figures have free will and moral responsibility, whereas the less-powerful are merely reacting to their environment
It's pretty stunning to me that the blame for instigating this event could be placed on the police, and that people looting stores and burning cars could be cast as misunderstood victims, "so-called rioters" as you put them (because a riot did not take place on Wednesday?). Mr. Beasly-Murray, do you wish to imply that the looters were not individually responsible for their actions? Because they were merely caught up in our culture's obsession with violence? Cannot the same be said when the police are over-bearing? They are just a product of our society, so their actions cannot be criticized?
I'm frustrated because, as a progressive, I feel like we've caged ourselves because we've all internalized this notion that only the powerful (politicians, the rich, cops) are responsible for their actions, the rest of us are victims - merely passive respondents to our environments. This attitude is self-neutering.
This is the first time I have sided with the police in a mass disturbance. The riots started 1 minute after the hockey game. It's quite obvious who started this fight. As for your critique of these particular police tactics, I don't understand it. You chastise the police for sitting around and not interfering? If they had busted in there immediately and begun violent arrests, I believe it would have been a much greater disaster, and they would have earned my resentment. Instead, I agree with the BCCLA, who commended them on their admirable restraint:
http://www.bccla.org/pressreleases/11Riot_reaction.html
What would be helpful is a description of an alternative plan, that you believe would be better than the one VPD employed on Wednesday?
pwlg
1 year ago
cbc
Just what responsibility does CBC have regarding its hyping of the cup series ad nauseum on its local radio and TV broadcast programs?
CBC did everything it could to juice the fans expectations and emotions. Why?
The more watch the series, which includes backdrops of crowds of people outside CBC studios, the more ad revenue. After Game 6 CBC was charging $140,000 for a 30 second spot.
The grand poobah of the Vancouver's CBC was "interviewed" on one of CBC's radio programs due to "talk-back callers" implicating CBC for its part in fanning the flames, so to speak. Instead of solid questioning he was handed soft lobs pre-arranged so he could read from his script put together from communication strategists.
What a load of bull chips. CBC spokesperson of course blamed it all on the "hoodies" as if a dozen of the black anarchists were the only ones busting up the city. He mentioned that CBC is a public broadcaster wanting to be more community minded. He played up the public aspect of CBC's mandate without mentioning that CBC is one of the people's assets that is not subject to Access to Information.
The CBC poobah also made no mention about the revenue they were making from the series from ads. Perhaps the CBC, a civic minded group, could help pay for the police costs as it was them who invited the masses downtown.
Perhaps its time to spread events around the entire region instead of always having one event downtown. Some local governments, like Surrey did attempt to create other meeting places however CBC did its best to focus all attention at their site on Georgia.
You helped create the mess, CBC, now pay for your part in it.
CBC now is the only broadcaster who is making hay from the riot, filling its dead air with yet more images and commentary. Gosh, even Rex Murphy has entered the fray. Let's see, you helped create the conditions for the riot and then you report on it.
I have also heard from Van riot police officers who were never called in that day even though Abbotsford cops were brought in. Perhaps Abby's cops are cheaper.
Was the City of Vancouver trying to save money? Were the police and city hall bean counters holding the lid on the number of officers available?
Will Christy Clark's whitewash of the events cleanse the image of Vancouver? Since she has already blamed it on the "hoodies" what room is there to fully inquire about what the article brings up...hockey is one of the most violent sports going...if ever there was a sport that resembled the "games" in a Roman amphitheatre its hockey.
The way to break the violence in hockey is to increase the size of the playing surface of the ice say to international standards. But that would hit into the profits of the owners of hockey teams, bigger ice means less seats, less beer.
pwlg
1 year ago
take it all into perspective
Its not as if sports fans and others haven't busted up other cities after or even during a sporting event.
"Cities hosting college football games experience a sharp rise in assaults and vandalism on game days, found University of Colorado researcher Kevin Rees."
I don't think anyone would be surprised by Rees' findings.
"...the host community registers sharp increases in assaults, vandalism, arrests for disorderly conduct and arrests for alcohol-related offenses on game days. Upsets are associated with the largest increases in the number of expected offenses.”
In Texas 40 fires were lit after a game and one student drove his car into a crowd. In New Hampshire, cars were burnt and emergency workers had rocks and bottles hurled at them when they tried to put out the fires.
In comparison to European cities, Vancouver was tame. In the past fans have even tried to injure other teams best players. In S. America a team player was assassinated after his part in a soccer (futbol) game loss. Nowadays players receive death threats from fans. The US may have its share of every day violence but its sports fan violence is lightweight compared to what happens in South America and Europe.
One thing that is unique in Vancouver is the number of people who have come out every day since the riot to scrape the streets and sidewalks clean.
VivianLea Doubt
1 year ago
nuance
The definition of 'nuance' from my admittedly ancient Oxford Dictionary of Current English is "subtle difference in or shade of meaning, feeling, colour, etc."
I have seen no suggestion here that 'rioters' should not be held responsible for their actions, nor have I read anything that suggests that anyone condones, supports, or excuses the behaviour of said rioters. However, simply condemning the rioters as 'idiots' or 'thugs' or what have you doesn't get us any further to understanding what drove their behaviour, and what might prevent it in the future. To my mind, all who participated in the hype and encouraged the spectacle and who mindlessly reiterated "we are all Canucks now!" helped this thing come to fruition. But whether you agree with me or not, it is the nuances of the thing - as the author has been at pains to point out - that we need to be looking at. We are not children here, and nobody needs tell us that a terrible and tragic thing happened.
Can we go beyond this to intelligent analysis, please?
G West
1 year ago
I don't believe the writer of the article - nor the comments
I don't believe the writer of the article - nor the comment writers for the most part - have suggested that the police are in any way to blame for this debacle.
Clearly they aren't.
However, that does not mean that the police could not have been used more intelligently - which is both what I believe AND what I take to be the attitude of the writer.
What does puzzle me is the suggestion that progressives or left leaning people have tried to make excuses for the rioters or their behavior.
In fact, if reader Plicata would take the time to read Jon Beasley-Murray's article again I think he or she would find that he isn't making excuses for anyone or anything.
He is reacting to certain attitudes...which he has clearly referenced, here, at para 4:
But by contrast with the discussion prompted by the on-ice fighting, the commentary on the post-game violence has been singularly un-nuanced. The people downtown have been uniformly condemned as "idiots." One Facebook status update I saw urged on the Vancouver Police Department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: "Go VPD Go!!! Go RCMP Go!!!" Another was scarier still in its unabashed call for an authoritarian crackdown: "How about a total media blackout and we let the police REALLY do what should be done?" Who are the thugs here? Who are the ones calling for more force, more violence?
This is hardly 'making excuses' for the rioters.
It IS suggesting that such events reflect something a little more complex and require actions that are a little less knee jerk in nature than turning a phalanx of police with truncheons loose on the streets while the rest of us turn the other way.
We are a society which, without a system of justice and the rule of law, would find that we would soon be victims of a more devastating series of riots and violence at all levels of our culture than anything we've seen in the 3 sports associated riots Vancouver has had in the past 50 odd years.
This is not attempting to demonize the police in any sense AND, it says nothing whatsoever about the attitudes of people in authority OR the motivation of the rioters nor does it suggest that there is some kind of left/right dichotomy between inebriated young people and figures of authority.
jbmurray
1 year ago
Re: responsibility
Again, thanks to everyone for such a lively discussion. I'm pleased that here and elsewhere we are now seeing some more thoughtful reflections on what happened. I do think we need to join the dots, and not blame things on a minority of "morons," "anarchists," "suburbanites" or whomever. This is *our* problem, as residents of Vancouver, Canada, and the modern world. As such it is our responsibility.
Two quick points:
To Plicata: I'm not blaming the police so much as the police plan. And as I've said, I know that the VPD has done better: at the Olympics, but also in its policing of the routine drunkenness and violence of Granville Street every Saturday night. In both cases, they are part of the crowd, make their presence known, without being overbearing. Where I was, at least, and at the time that I was there (I acknowledge that conditions may well have been different a little earlier), that would have been more than possible. But by that time, they had already entered full riot mode, which made things worse rather than better.
This is not to say that the people who broke stuff and set fire to stuff and looted (and so on) were not responsible. But they stepped into a vacuum once they realized that they would not incur any immediate consequences. For some, I have no doubt that it was a carnivalesque atmosphere in which, briefly, anything was possible. That's intoxicating... especially to the intoxicated.
And to galianoandometepe: I refuse either the notion that everyone on the streets was somehow criminally responsible, or that we should abandon the streets to those who were. Yes, some of the crowd acted as a receptive audience to the violence: it became a spectator sport that (this is part of my point) was something of a continuation of what had just been broadcast on the giant screens. But some were curious, some wanted to document what was going on, some just found themselves there. I'm against making downtown Vancouver a no-go area, in which everyone present is presumed guilty and treated as such.
jbmurray
1 year ago
follow-up
I have now written a follow-up, on the embarrassing reaction to the riot: http://posthegemony.blogspot.com/2011/06/embarrassing.html
anarchynow
1 year ago
NHL vs Ice Hockey; Entertainment vs Athleticism; War vs. Peace..
The NHL's Stanley Cup Playoffs are just one version of hockey - and this is a version that clearly allows rules to be broken in an attempt to be the toughest brand of hockey in the world. This is why ex-goons like Don Cherry and Mike Milbury are part of the CBC crew.
Ice Hockey has many rules that are intended to let the skilled players take over the game.
Vancouver had by far the most skilled team - Boston clearly had the toughest team.
In an ice hockey game (Olympic standards) Vancouver would have won in four.
When the rules are not enforced and, more importantly, when the players to not self-regulate their actions on the ice, violent hockey ensues.
Vancouver fans cannot help feeling there was a severe injustice; the Canucks were victims of violence, including taunting from a variety of sources, Mike Milbury's sexist, childish Thelma and Louise comments perhaps being the worst.
How do some young, immature people react when they feel like sand has been thrown in their faces?
How do some young people react when they see their heroes breaking the rules in a frenzy of on-ice violence with a serious lack of self-regulation?
The NHL is bordering on the edge Wrestling Entertainment culture - and I think it likes it.
We need to stand up for ice hockey as it was meant to be played; we'll be standing up for peace as well.
VivianLea Doubt
1 year ago
NHL versus hockey
I think there is something to what you write, anarchynow - although it has been a while since I watched an NHL game. I remember the hockey of my childhood as being a somewhat different game. Someone mentioned that in days past there were 'bench-clearing brawls' in the game ...why yes, I can see it in my mind's eye, and the chants of 'fight, fight' that broke out. The difference was, maybe, that fighting was just that - a breakdown of the 'game' into 'fight'. I see no such demarcation now, as the intent to maim and injure seems writ into the behaviour of the 'players'. And the monumental ignorance of Don Cherry needs no elaboration - I believe I would go mad if I listened to him at any length...maybe that IS the explanantion for the riot?
Plicata
1 year ago
Hi JBMurray, Thanks for
Hi JBMurray,
Thanks for your response. That makes your position clearer to me, as regards responsibility.
zalm
1 year ago
jbmurray
...and a very good followup it is too, especially the link to Alexander Dawson.
Well, said. You too pwlg and Anarchynow.
galianoandometepe
1 year ago
Riot Act
A quick wiki search on the Riot Act produces the following:
"In Canada, the Riot Act has been incorporated in a modified form into ss. 32-33[10] and 64-69[11][12][13] of the Criminal Code of Canada. The proclamation is worded as follows:
Her Majesty the Queen charges and commands all persons being assembled immediately to disperse and peaceably to depart to their habitations or to their lawful business on the pain of being guilty of an offence for which, on conviction, they may be sentenced to imprisonment for life. God Save the Queen.
Unlike the original Riot Act, the Criminal Code requires the assembled people to disperse within 30 minutes. Paragraph 68 provides for the life imprisonment should the proclamation be ignored. In the absence of a proclamation, paragraph 65 stipulates imprisonment for not more than 2 years as punishment for rioting.
...
In 2011, the city of Vancouver, British Columbia read the riot act to suppress mass unrest after the Vancouver Canucks lost in the seventh game of the NHL final against the Boston Bruins."
So while you may not have wished to be held criminally responsible, it looks as though under law you, and others who did not disperse as the law requires, may be.
marcerickson
1 year ago
Penultimate means second to last...
...NOT last. The word that should be used is ultimate.
jbmurray
1 year ago
penultimate and riot act
Mason Raymond was injured in Game 6, which was indeed the second to last or "penultimate" game of the season (or of the post-season, if you prefer).
galianoandometepe, yes, I recognize that technically I may perhaps face life in prison for not leaving. My previous comment stands, though: I don't think we should give up the street to the rioters. For what it's worth, I wasn't there when the Riot Act was read--and I understand that it was actually read. In fact, I saw and heard no communication at all from the police at any time.
galianoandometepe
1 year ago
Riot Act, redux
To be absolutely clear: I, for one, do not believe that society would be served by jailing you for life for walking downtown during the riots. And I am uncomfortable with the law as it is presented. However, you have repeatedly admonished the police for treating the whole crowd like criminals, so I thought that it should be pointed out that the whole crowd were breaking what, when judging by the seriousness of the punishment, was a very serious law. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the police treated them as though they were.
I believe that, regardless of any law you may have broken, because your presence (and the presence of other bystanders) made the police's job more difficult - as a thought exercise, imagine that you are the police tasked with controlling the rioters with or without thousands of bystanders hanging out; which would be easier? The answer seems obvious to me - you should have abandoned the streets to the police and the rioters. If you had some special skills in crowd control, mediation or first aid for example, I suppose that an argument could be made for you to be there, but if you mentioned that in your article, I am sorry that I missed it. As it is, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
jbmurray
1 year ago
Ometepe
galianoandometepe, we can agree to disagree. But an off-topic question: does the "Ometepe" in your handle suggest a link to Nicaragua?
brm56
1 year ago
Riot
I was in Calgary when the Flames won in 1989. If you were causing trouble you were quickly exited away from the main crowd.Vancouver Police did not move quickly enough to stem the riot at its start.
VivianLea Doubt
1 year ago
if the police did not act quickly enough -
does that not beg the question of why rioting is so endemic around 'sports' events? And does that then mean that all righteous and upstanding citizens should barricade themselves in their homes during said events?
How will we solve the problem of all those people that have to work - servers, bartenders, etcetera - during said events, and right at the heart of riot city? Maybe we could give them badges, say, yellow stars, so the police would know they were walking home from work and not actually rioting.