Alex Veeneman, Asst. Opinions Editor
The day after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the Finals, causing riots to engulf Canada’s third largest city, Colleen Lamothe took a walk to examine the areas impacted. Night-long riot actions consisted of burning police cars, damaging shops and other violence; it subsided in the early hours of that morning. As residents in Vancouver worked to accept what happened, campaigns on Facebook and Twitter were put together with one goal in mind—getting the city they loved back on its feet.
I went down at 2 p.m. and the city was spotless,” Lamothe said. “People were writing apologies for the incidents and putting thank you notes on police cars. Vancouver showed they are a class act. The riots weren’t what Vancouver was.”
What happened the night before, Lamothe says, were not the actions of Canucks fans, but actions of people who wanted to cause trouble. “This didn’t have much to do with hockey,” Lamothe said. “Out here, there was a lot of embarrassment. The people who really love hockey were devastated.”
As another NHL season opens, Vancouver police are on a mission to find those responsible. Inspector Joanne Boyle of the Vancouver Police Department’s Integrated Riot Investigation Team, which is compromised of the VPD, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and eight additional municipal departments, said at least 500 have been arrested and more suspects are reviewed as new footage comes in.
“We want to identify all of the people who committed crimes that night,” Boyle said.
Additionally, the VPD sent production orders (warrants requesting footage) to the media covering the incident in order to assist with the investigation. Jeff Keay, a spokesman for the CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster, said the production order they received was being reviewed.
Requests to the commercial networks CTV and Global, Postmedia (which owns The Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers in the area) and the national newspaper The Globe and Mail, which also received production orders, were not returned.
Boyle added that the team had not received word of compliance from any outlets due to the orders.
“We cannot stall the investigation while we wait for that video,” Boyle said. “We don’t know what the media has, and we’re not waiting for them to comply.” Boyle added that video submitted voluntarily by the public, in addition to video captured by police, is being used in the interim to help with the investigation.
The rivalry for the Stanley Cup between Vancouver and Boston was significant, simply because Vancouver had not won the Cup in the history of the franchise, despite getting to the finals on numerous occasions.
Yet, there are more incidents outside of Vancouver and Boston.
“If we look at similar rivalries (Red Sox-Yankees; Cubs-Sox) there are extreme rivalries, more passionate than politics,” said Dr. Thomas Brignall, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Lewis. However, Brignall adds, the riots in question weren’t inherent of the NHL or Vancouver. “If we look at all the riots being caused by sports, there are a lot of reasons,” Brignall said. “Everyone has peer pressure and it takes one or two people to create a spark. We’ve all done something dumb; that doesn’t mean we’re bad. But, you could find people involved and have a clean code and they suddenly act idiotic.”
Boyle added that these riots had very little direct connection with the game.
“We’ve never had a problem at hockey games, and at that game. These were members of the public who drank too much and caused trouble,” Boyle said.
A spokeswoman for the NHL declined to comment for this article and requests to various teams (including the Canucks, the Bruins and the Blackhawks) were not returned.
Yet, there is confidence that hockey will move forward.
“This will go away, but cities with playoffs will step up law enforcement, especially in rivalries,” Brignall added.
Boyle added the investigations will continue for as long as necessary, but won’t be rushed.
“We want to tell the public that justice has been served, and not just the VPD but this investigation, have done their very best to hold those accountable,” Boyle said. “The public is demanding that and we will deliver.”
But for Colleen Lamothe and the other Canucks fans who watched in horror as their city was desecrated, their pride for hockey, their team and their city will shine.
“This won’t be the type of thing that won’t keep people from coming or watching,” Lamothe said. “Nobody will forget what happened though and we won’t let that happen again.”
Alex Veeneman
Opinions Editor | Click here for Alex's Archives
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