Dear Universe: Are You Deaf?

Apparently the Universe doesn't take requests. 


The fervent optimism I displayed in my last post has been replaced with a sad-saturated bummer-cloud of epic, epic proportions. 


We lost the cup. But everyone on earth knows that, because there may have been a bit of a public disturbance after said loss. 

We've been talking in jest about how everyone should come prepared for the riot after game seven (I may or may not have a status update to that regard), but I think we really thought that it either wouldn't happen, or if it did, wouldn't be that bad!


We were dead wrong. 


Jenna and I had parked it outside of Canada Place with prime seats to watch the game (a.k.a. watch us get our assess handed to us. Curse you, Tim Thomas! Y U No Human!!!) and after our crushing defeat walked with the rest of the reasonable humans in a depressed march homeward. 


We had sat with a few of Jenna's friends who happened to have parked down on Cambie Street so we figured we would walk down Georgia and see if there were any festivities happening, you know gracious-in-defeat drinking celebrations or something?


See, we naively thought that, like the march-of-sadness humans we were walking with, people would be too depressed to riot! At least, I think all the people who were there to actually watch the game really were too sad to function, but in the 20 minutes it took us to get from Water St. to Georgia and Homer, the feel of the crowd was significantly different, both from the depressed marchers, and the previous games' celebrations downtown. 


Gone was the jovial celebratory vibes from the Granville crowds of party goers, and a new sense that something was about to go horribly wrong was in their place. 


It almost felt a bit post-apocalyptic, like you couldn't really put your finger on what was wrong, but something just felt off. If it were a movie, you'd soon realize that this feeling meant that secretly all the human forms around you were actually zombies waiting to eat your brains...in the Vancouver riot, the zombies just wanted to break shit.

Instead of people congregating on street corners to dance around roving party trucks, they amassed to watch random strangers get the piss beaten out of them. 


Port-a-potty's had been toppled over and a few ridiculous individuals thought it would be super-cool to jump all over them. THEY'RE PORT-A-POTTY'S!!! The pools of semi-sanatized blue urine surrounding them and running down the street in pungent rivulets of filth was a particularly nice touch to this bit of destruction. 


Jenna and I, at this point, had realized that shit was going to go down, but the urgency to leave hadn't quite happened yet. Most people were just milling about and taking pictures of the idiots jumping on the toilets, and wisps of smoke could be seen from further down the street. 

We started to hear windows breaking and realized that people were actually breaking into the Bank of Montreal. THE BANK! I just sort of stood frozen in the intersection, not sure if this new chaotic development warranted departure yet. As I mentioned, the majority of people were just standing around taking pictures. I have to admit I snapped a few myself. But as the riot police showed up, and started pushing the crowd back, forcing Jenna and I to get caught in a sea of running people, I was done. I took one look at the horses being mounted, and the riot gear being donned and thought "you know what? I'm out!"

As we turned to leave, the car that had been lit on fire down the street exploded and another sea of running people came towards us. I'm happy to say that I was able to react accordingly to this surge of bodies; I've always secretly suspected that I would just freeze in a crisis but, fear not, my flight imperative is set to 11, even in sandals, and we high tailed it down Homer and didn't look back. 


We went to around the corner from the riot to make sure Jenna's workplace hadn't been destroyed...and it was pristinely quiet. We walked into Waves and said "Uh...just so you know, there's a, uh...riot...happening around the corner..."


Having made sure Jenna would still have a place of employment come Thursday,  we went in search of food. There's only so much chaos one can watch before it becomes uninteresting....


We were there for a total of about 20 minutes altogether. We came, we saw, when it got real, we got the fuck out. We didn't stick around until it got dark and documented the whole ordeal on hi-def video, or took pictures of every piece of destruction like it was an attraction at an amusement park. 


The funny thing about the whole situation for Jenna and I was that we didn't even realize how bad things were until we got home hours later. 


We walked down to Gastown for a bit, had no issues getting on the sky train, grabbed some Wendy's and went home. Maybe things got worse after we left, but it just seemed like a crazy thing that was happening, and not something that we couldn't avoid easily. 

By the time we turned on the news at home, it was clear that the riot had escalated horribly and all that looting I had been joking about earlier in the day, actually came to pass. I sat and watched the reporter film the police gearing up outside Sears on Granville and Robson and thought "wow, I walk through that intersection at least once a week, if not more...and THIS is for realz happening there right now". It's a strange feeling to see an anomalous event happening in your hometown, and it's especially weird to watch it happen just hours after you were down there yourself. 


I went to bed that night thinking I would have to make a contingency for getting to work if the busses weren't able to get through the aftermath of the riot. This was not necessary. 


As my bus drove right passed the area of downtown where the riot broke out...you couldn't even tell anything had happened. All the windows had been boarded up during the wee hours, and those Vancouverites that wanted to present a positive face for what our city is truly about, came out in droves to clean up the mess. 


It was all anyone could talk about at work (the riot, the cleanup, the hooligans etc), and after the day had ended, I went with a co-worker to re-visit the damages and see what had infinitely happened. 


As we walked down Granville street, we started to notice that the plywood boards were quickly becoming covered in Sharpie-hewn messages. The closer we got to The Bay, the more prolific the messages became. 

They professed love for our city, and for the volunteers that came out and cleaned up the mess. 


They shouted love and support for the beloved Canucks and that the riot was not a reflection of their gallant effort during the Stanley Cup Finals. 


There were, interspersed amongst the positivity, messages of hate as well. People not just condemning the rioters, but sinking to their level in their name-slinging. We get it, the people who rioted are idiots and they fucked up the city. Do they deserve to die? No. Do they deserve to have any of their rights and freedoms taken away? No. They deserve to be subjected to due process. 


I am more appalled at the hate mongering being tossed about by the sanctimonious asshole commentators who had nothing to do with the riot, than the rioters themselves. While I appreciate that the riot and those that participated in it is a blemish on what should have been a sportsmanlike loss, those that judge the individuals that contributed to the chaos based on race, intelligence, location, sexual orientation etc, only prove that a meagre few Canuck fans actually deserve to rejoice in a future cup win. 


Pull your shit together people! It was a big game, but in the end it's just that: A GAME. It is not, by any stretch, a catalyst for us to return to a medieval value system whereby certain individuals "deserve" more than others. We are a democracy. We are multicultural. We are accepting. Or at least we're supposed to be. 

What ever happened to THIS kind of Canadian

I look at the reaction people have had to the riot as a real reflection of the disintegration of what we used to be as Canadians. No more is the polite, inclusive, nice-guy of the north. We have deceived ourselves into thinking that just because we happen to be from Canada, the values of our stereotype are ingrained at birth. All the things the set us apart from the USA are slowly being amalgamated into an American-style value structure and as a result, we are desperately clinging to the few tangible pieces of Canadian culture we have left (a.k.a. Hockey...and maybe Poutine). 


I implore all Canadians to re-evaluate how you behave and react to what is happening around you. Realize that we are supposed to be better than this, and that propagating hatred is just as damaging as throwing a brick through a store window. 


Namaste, eh?