I love social media…by and large it’s a great way for a person who has become a virtual shut it to be in touch with the world…however…it also can make people shut ins… getting caught up in the “ride” of an subject via social media can keep you occupied for hours.
I don’t watch sports, but I live in BC and unless you’ve been living under a rock you know that the Vancouver Canucks lost Lord Stanley’s Cup to the Boston Bruins last night and it resulted in a riot in downtown Vancouver.
Here’s a phenomena that I’ve found quite interesting about sports fans (I don’t know…maybe they are like this about other things I’ve not noticed it) Sports fans are fickle. And as my friend Louie says “this wasn’t about hockey“.
It was hard, even as a non hockey fan to not get caught up in the fervor prior to the game. I saw cars with as many as a dozen Canuck flags on them…some even 4 ft flags…and it just wasn’t in Victoria…it was all over BC. They jumped on and off the bandwagon quicker than you can say “win, lose or draw”. I’ve some acquaintances that have virtually painted their homes in Canucks paraphernalia, that walked, talked eat and shat Canucks day in and day out, they got together for games, restaurants that normally sell just food installed TV’s for the games, the city of Vancouver purchased/rented huge mega TVs and set them up downtown for fans to be involved…and involved they were…so much so that I (as a non fan) know very well who the Sedin brothers are or Bobby Lou.
It makes me sad about humanity that these same fans fell off of the sports wagon with a large resounding thump in Vancouver last night. The resultant mayhem was sad and predictable….
Firstly let me say that the Vancouver fans that stayed in the arena and gave the Bruins a standing ovation are to be commended and it would be my wish that they stood in good stead for the majority of Canadians in doing so. I can’t say they stood for us all…because look what happened.
The riot apparently started when some people set fire to a police car in the CBC fan zone resulting in multiple fires, many injuries on both sides, smashing of stores, looting etc. Really? You go to a game to support your team and you bring along fireworks and a Molotov cocktail er two. Seriously…this face just looks stupid.
There’s no amount of rhetoric or talking that will make me believe that there was not a underlying plan by some people to utilize the crowd mentality and strike a blow for anarchy er some such stupidity. I saw pictures of people online today wearing t-shirts that say “I’m just here for the riots”. That smacks of pre-meditation and people like that should be held accountable.
Also to be commended are the men and women of the emergency services (police, ambulance, firefighters, hospital staff etc) who stepped up and into that fray. It couldn’t have been easy because after all…they are just people too..with families and fears.
I saw the police chief constable interviewed this morning and I found myself wondering why he would have to spend all his time justifying the actions of his people…wtf? He said clearly that there many more people in the streets than in 94’s riot…and they had it quelled in 3 hours…and yet people hold the police to blame somehow? How would you like to be an emergency responder or cop with literally hundreds of thousands of people trying to “get you” with rocks, bottles, sticks, mannequin arms and legs stolen from looted stores, and outhouses? Why are the responders to blame? Why not the city that rented the damn TVs in the first place? Why not the scheduler of the games that scheduled a final game on a full moon? Why not the fans that jumped off the bandwagon faster than you can say lose? And why not the people that came downtown with the express intent to riot? To cause trouble?
The mind boggles.
In response to the horror/shame Canadians felt around the riot there has been a wellspring of grass roots movements to assist the police in identifying the culprits via all manner of social media. Twitter and Facebook are abuzz today and people are posting their pictures and the FB status of those bragging on the riot in an attempt to make themselves feel better for what happened. There was even a huge site dedicated to people just committing to getting to downtown Vancouver to help with the clean up.
For me? I think this whole event is indicative of a much larger underlying problem North America has on a whole. A general malaise by a younger generation towards any kind of accountability and an almost genetic predisposition towards the idea of getting rich or famous therefore rich by any means necessary. (without actually working for it…”even negative publicity is publicity”) There is no unspoken line they won’t cross and going forward we can only hope that there will be more young adults who won’t cross those lines as opposed to the rabble we saw last night.