Great Hockey Riots #7

Great Hockey Riots #7  Vancouver Canucks lose in 7 games to Boston Bruins 2010

If the Montreal Canadiens are the New York Yankees of baseball, the Vancouver Canucks are the Buffalo Bills of the NFL.  They've been to the finals 3x in their history and have come away empty-handed each time.  Unless you are a fan and then you most likely will come away with something that you grabbed quickly out of a broken store window while running from tear gas and the riot police. 

In 2010, fresh off the high of a successful Winter Olympics Vancouver decided to follow the same format by making every game day of the final a 'party in the city'.  Streets were cordoned off, huge large screen televisions were placed up high and people poured into the city on free public transit to watch the games while drinking smuggled liquor out of thermoses and brown paper bags.  What could go wrong?

I sense a MAXIM article in here somewhere...

Well, as city officials found out in 2010, lots.  Cars parked too close to the rink where the Boston Bruins were being presented the cup were first vandalized then burned.  Riot police were called in and in a questionable decision pushed the crowds away from the rink into the downtown core where the real rioting began.  Cars were torched, people beat up, tear gas deployed.  Hundreds of dollars of damage.  Stores vandalized and robbed.   And just to show you how cool Canadian men can be this picture of a dude making out with an Australian girl became world famous.  

It was largely agreed by everybody that this was a great riot; the cops were able to use all their toys, politicians were able to condemn the actions of these 'non-hockey' fans and vigilante justice evolved into a very public Facebook outing of certain rioters, many who have yet to have officially to stand trial in 'real' court.  Yep, everyone had fun, except for this guy, who took a firecracker to the balls.

And just to put this riot in perspective, here is how the Boston Bruins Andrew Ference and bunch of Bruins fans celebrated their Stanley Cup win; 

And a million Canadian hockey fans died all over again that day...