Last night the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup final. An estimated 100,000 people were in the downtown core to take part in festivities -- a number that far surpasses those that flooded the city in 1994. If you weren't a resident of Vancouver that fateful night 17 years ago then you have absolutely no frame of reference regarding the impact it had on the people of the city, most of whom had nothing to do with the riot, and the utter embarrassment that it caused. Broadcast live to the continent on CNN, scenes of morons smashing windows, looting stores, and confronting police were shown repeatedly for days afterwards.

How do we understand the riots that exploded in Vancouver after the beloved Canucks lost the Stanley Cup Finals? How do we understand the burning cars, broken glass, and injuries that stand as an enduring coda of their game-seven defeat at the hands of the visiting Boston Bruins?

Having communicated with several dozen people in "the most livable city in the world" I think I have a modest perspective on why the Canucks 4-0 loss was followed by fire.

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The verdict is in: Insite saves lives. A study by UBC scientists at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS adds to the collection of data already showing that North America's first medically supervised safer injection facility saves lives and money.

The study, published last month in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, concludes that the opening of Insite in 2003 was associated with a 35 per cent reduction in overdose deaths in the neighbourhood surrounding the facility. This reduction translates into real lives saved at no expense whatsoever to the federal government.

Vancouver City Council voted Thursday to postpone hearings on the controversial Historic Heights Report which would have recommended higher density zoning for the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown.

The hearing, scheduled for 2 pm Thursday afternoon, would have allowed Council to hear reactions from affected groups and residents of the communities concerned.

Councillor Andrea Reimer told reporters in front of Council Chambers that they were postponing hearings and a vote on DTES rezoning for higher density in order to conduct social and economic impact studies first. The portion of the report that makes recommendations for zoning in Chinatown will be brought before council at a later date, perhaps in February.