A little chaos from our more civilized neighbors to the north.



Vancouver mayor and police chief blame Stanley Cup riot on anarchists.


VANCOUVER -- Roving bands of anarchists and troublemakers bent on havoc set fires, broke windows and whipped up booze-fuelled mobs to create the worst riot in Vancouver’s history, Mayor Gregor Robertson said Thursday.

The mayor said there was no advance warning of the strategy, which caught police and city officials off guard, and may force them to take a different approach to security plans for large public gatherings in the future.

“There had been absolutely no signs of this coming,” Robertson said Thursday afternoon. “Both during the G-20 [leaders’ summit in Toronto] and the 2010 Olympics these thugs were well known to be organizing and preparing to take action and criminal activities on the streets. There were no indications of that leading into last night,” he said.

“Definitely there are citizens responsible for inflaming the situation. But there were purposeful vandals who instigated this and very cleverly whipped many others into a frenzy by attacking cars and storefronts and moving throughout the downtown to create more hot spots.”

And he said the lack of forewarning about “anarchists and thugs” planning to bring hammers and Molotov cocktails to a public party may mean police will have to adopt new methods of intelligence-gathering.

“We’re going to have to make changes,” he said as he toured the damage. “Based on what happened last night, we’re going to have to understand how this was enabled to happen.”

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Vancouver+mayor+police+chief+blame+Stanley+riot+anarchists/4958411/story.html#ixzz1PXWRB2Fs

An interesting site... http://publicshamingeternus.wordpress.com/

This event wasn't that unusual. It is usually the soccer fans but hockey has drunk rowdy fans too. I wonder what would have happened if they had won?

It's not just soccer and hockey. In the US, fans have been stupid and rioted over other sports as well.

The key word was "usually".

Right. Usually, in the US (as I just mentioned the US, not other countries), it's not just hockey and soccer.

Do they usually riot over soccer in Canada anyway?

Also, I think this has little to do with sports and more to do with people just wanting to riot over something.

I agree it certainly happens here, but this was something that these loosely affiliated anarchist groups planned out. Win or lose they were planning to set the city on fire. They went to the viewing areas with the necessary materials to start the destruction.

I would have to do some research and find out if our anarchists were ever involved to this extent in helping to set off this type of riot here. I don't recall ever reading that they have.

This sets a dangerous precedent.

So if violent soccer fans are called Soccer Hooligans in the UK what do you call violent hockey fans?

I salute the Canadians.

Do you think what they've been doing in Vancouver is good?

It is an embarrassment and not at all reflective of the people of Vancouver. The more meaningful stories to me are the ones of a city coming together to clean up the wreckage.

Sad night instigated by idiots.

Yeah, the city working together to clean everything up is definitely a good thing.