"World Bemused By Vancouver's Hockey Riot

[Elyse]

International media reported with surprise at the outbreak of rioting in Vancouver after the Canucks' Stanley Cup loss Wednesday night.

A headline on London's Daily Mail website reads: "No, it is not another G20 protest  somebody lost an ice-hockey match."

Washington's respected publication The Atlantic wrote: "In Syria, they riot for freedom. In Pakistan, they riot against U.S. drone strikes. In China, they riot over many things, most recently in Guangdong province for worker's rights. But in Canada, which is officially ranked as one of the wealthiest and most peaceful nations in the world, they riot over, yes, hockey."

British newspaper The Guardian reported that "angry, drunken Vancouver Canucks fans took to the streets, setting cars and rubbish bins ablaze, smashing windows, showering giant TV screens with beer bottles, dancing atop overturned vehicles and looting shops."

The Guardian also published an opinion piece by Canadian musician Matthew Good, who wrote that the post-game violence in Vancouver "revealed it to be far more a backwater fishing village than a world-class city."

Sports Illustrated noted that "the debate of violence in hockey took new meaning in Vancouver, B.C., as fans turned their frustration over losing Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals into a riot-filled evening on the city's streets Wednesday night, complete with overturning and burning police vehicles and engaging in widespread looting."

And James O'Brien, an online hockey writer for NBC Sports, called the riots a "huge black eye for the city of Vancouver, even if the spin dictates that it was a relatively small piece of the populace."

Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/World+bemused+Vancouver+hockey+riot/4958274/story.html

Only Canadians would riot over hockey. Kinda funny, too, but I was rooting for Vancouver.