While the volatile combination of high hopes, big crowds, and an ample supply of alcohol and twenty-year-olds may have struck some as a predictable recipe for a riot, two days later news reporters and columnists are still struggling to make sense of what happened on Wednesday.

Dedicating the majority of their homepage to riot coverage, the Vancouver Observer notes heroism while regularly blasting the rioters. To sample from Morgan Brayton's opinion piece, "Dear Hooligans": "Fuck You."

Christie Blatchford at the National Post offers a slightly more bemused tone, though as she explains it, it's one she must adopt "lest I be obliged to weep."

At The Vancouver Media Co-op, "Canucks Fans Celebrate Loss by Burning Cars, Looting," reads the subheadline for a piece written by an anonymous Zig Zag who critiques the violence mainly for lacking the proper motivation and strategy. "Having been in several riotuous situations myself, I can say that a hockey riot is very different from street actions that have some political goal. In a hockey riot, there is little sense of unity, less solidarity and far less ability for groups to coordinate their activities..."

Appropriately enough, however, given the social media dependent nature of the "riot 2.0" coverage, the story that seems to most closely approximate the mood of the city comes from a blog. One man's narrative of Wednesday's events interspersed with grainy and overexposed photographs, Noah's Journal follows the story of the summer from game to riot to the overwhelming disappointment that followed.

Abroad, while coverage of the riot has largely been relegated to the sports pages, the story of the "riot kissers," irresistible from the human interest angle, continues to receive attention from The Guardian, MSNBC, and BBC.

Though questions over the significance of the Vancouver riots still linger, one thing can be said with absolute certainty: N.M.A. News offers what is without a doubt the most bizarre coverage of the riots. The Taiwanese news agency known for using computer animation to reenact major news stories presents the Stanley Cup mayhem in "Anarchy in the B.C. As Canuck fans riot."