Stanley Cup 2011 2: Best of Three

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Slumberjack

N.Beltov wrote:
The sports hooliganism typically has a right wing bias..

I think you may have something in saying that.  These mobs appear in large part to consist of drunken white dudes who have invested practically all of their emotional capacity for far too long into a meaningless, vicarious fiction.  It's the sort of thing that ones relative privledge provides for, along with the accompanying amount of idle time on hand, in addition to a prior understanding that no great personal harm is likely to come of it, because authorities which largely consist of similar demographics to the rioters aren't likely to confront the hooliganism with guns blazing as they very well might in other circumstances.  In this context we have violence and destruction being perpetuated as the result of a drunken lark with no particular focus or underlying message, no consideration of its consequences, informed by nothing other than a whim, or because they can in fact.  It actually mirrors right wing violence in its content, at least for those who support it.

A_J

Slumberjack wrote:

N.Beltov wrote:
The sports hooliganism typically has a right wing bias..

I think you may have something in saying that.  These mobs appear in large part to consist of drunken white dudes who have invested practically all of their emotional capacity for far too long into a meaningless, vicarious fiction.

Looking at some pictures from Global, the crowd is at times surprisingly diverse.  And not only are there lots of jersey-wearing rioters smashing windows, looting stores, flipping cars, etc. there are a significant number of folks who look like they would have been at home in last year's Olympics riot; who came prepared with bandanas and goggles . . . Vancouver's "professional rioters" an acquaintance calls them.

N.Beltov N.Beltov's picture

"Professional rioters" are typically peppered with more than just the latest "non-lethal" weapon in the police arsenal. They are also peppered with police provocateurs whose purpose is to discredit any and all civil disobedience, peaceful protest, any protest by their own violent, and often illegal, actions. 

Think like Lenin. Who benefits? Follow the money. Who benefits from such "protests"? Why, the police and those who supply the police with the latest gadgets and weapons,  that's who. And right wing politicians who have every intention of following such events with a "crackdown" on the next bunch to engage in "rioting".

What could be better for right wing shit bags? One set of public servants get rewarded with overtime and new toys. (The police and the security state in general) Another set will be rewarded with ... a more "serious" police response in due order. (public servants that the Conservative regime wishes to make an example of.)  divide and rule.

This should be ABC to any left winger with a head on their shoulders. And anathema to right wingers.

Sven Sven's picture

Slumberjack wrote:

I think you may have something in saying that.  These mobs appear in large part to consist of drunken white dudes who have invested practically all of their emotional capacity for far too long into a meaningless, vicarious fiction.  It's the sort of thing that ones relative privledge provides for, along with the accompanying amount of idle time on hand, in addition to a prior understanding that no great personal harm is likely to come of it, because authorities which largely consist of similar demographics to the rioters aren't likely to confront the hooliganism with guns blazing as they very well might in other circumstances.  In this context we have violence and destruction being perpetuated as the result of a drunken lark with no particular focus or underlying message, no consideration of its consequences, informed by nothing other than a whim, or because they can in fact.  It actually mirrors right wing violence in its content, at least for those who support it.

Must everything be minutely examined and carefully critiqued with a political lens??

It's a few drunk hockey fans, for Christ's sake.

N.Beltov N.Beltov's picture

What a typical right wing response - disdain for political analysis. You know this is a POLITICAL website, don't you? lol.

al-Qa'bong

Yeah, let's interrogate the political ramifications of bored drunken punks looking for an excuse to fight and smash stuff.

I've seen the same behaviour at small-town weddings.  Someone must put a stop to this outrage - ban marriage, I say!

Slumberjack

But there are political ramifications.  Look at what our entertainment industry has wrought in this instance, and look to what it sucessfully manages to obscure.  A wasted effort if you ask me.

Northern Shoveler Northern Shoveler's picture

I think it is a very long established right of passage for some Canadian youth especially those in BC.  I am surprised at the images because our drunken louts usually prefer to go for the police cars.

I remember when I first moved to the coast in the 70's and was at a beach party on the outskirts of Powell River.  Hundreds of young folk spread out along a beach in a series of drunken parties.  The RCMP showed up with the two cruisers on patrol that night and tried to arrest a few people. They walked back to town while their cars burnt.  I was too busy at a bon fire drinking and chatting to women to be bothered with such tom foolery but this is not something new. Especially for BC youth. Across the water on Texada in the late 60's the RCMP had a cop stationed on the island that no body liked and the locals drove his car of the wharf and threw him in behind it and told him to swim back to the mainland.  None of it political just a traditional BC view of authority.  Police cars being vandalized when they show up at drunken parties in small numbers is the norm out here.  

What about in other places.  Do you have bush parties with gangs of drunken youth.  Do they also like to make pretty bon fires out of unattended police cars or is this merely a BC thing.

Sven Sven's picture

Slumberjack wrote:

But there are political ramifications.  Look at what our entertainment industry has wrought in this instance, and look to what it sucessfully manages to obscure.  A wasted effort if you ask me.

Well, there are policitical ramifications in everything, if we want to look closely enough.  But, if I'm at a neighborhood BBQ on a sunny Saturday afternoon, enjoying the outdoors, a beer and a hamburger, and some conversation with the neighbors, I wouldn't be real keen about someone sniffing around asking tsk-tsk questions like: "Hmmmm...was that lettuce you're eating locally grown or was it shipped in from California?? And, do you realize the negative impact your hamburger meat is having on our climate??"

Sometimes, a drunken hockey fan is just...a drunken hockey fan.

Aristotleded24

Why wouldn't the police have been able to prevent the chaos and mayhem, especially since they had 1994 to look back on?

Slumberjack

Even the slightest rebellion against authority carries with it some form of political undertone.

al-Qa'bong

Good ol' Texada.  That brings back memories of a camping trip, with blank ammo, that I went on with the reserves many years ago.

This incendiary violence sounds more like a BC thing than a hockey thing, despite the efforts of the political analysts here to claim otherwise.  If losing at hockey were really the cause of such shenanigans, Toronto would be a bombed-out wasteland.

Sven Sven's picture

al-Qa'bong wrote:

If losing at hockey were really the cause of such shenanigans, Toronto would be a bombed-out wasteland.

Laughing

al-Qa'bong

Slumberjack wrote:

Even the slightest rebellion against authority carries with it some form of political undertone.

 

Like this?

The Undertones - "Teenage Kicks"

or this?

The Clash - "White Riot"

Slumberjack

al-Qa'bong wrote:
This incendiary violence sounds more like a BC thing than a hockey thing, despite the efforts of the political analysts here to claim otherwise.  If losing at hockey were really the cause of such shenanigans, Toronto would be a bombed-out wasteland.

I agree its not just a hockey thing.  There's plenty of frustration out there seeking a release, which many people have no clue whatsoever where it originates from, and correspondingly, have even less of an idea where to appropriately channel it.  I don't however, subscribe to the notion that its just a BC thing.

Sven Sven's picture

Back to hockey...

I have some mixed feelings about the Cup Series this year.  As a Wild fan (no, I'm not asking for pity, just stating a fact), I love seeing the Canucks lose.  And, as a kid, I really loved Bobby Orr and the Bruins.  But, at the same time, I do feel a bit bad for the Canucks fans - they are the most passionate hockey fans of any of the NHL teams, in my opinion (have you ever been to the fan message board??) and are akin to the type of fans that support the Green Bay Packers in the NFL (another team that I can't stand but I really admire the passion their fans have for that team).

But, looking at it dispassionately, I'm still stunned at the collapse of the 'Nucks in this SCS.  A 2-0 start to the series - I thought they might even win the Cup in four (but probably in five).  So, for the highest-scoring team in the league this year (I believe) to score only eight goals in seven games is hard to fathom.  It's going to be a long and ugly summer for those Canucks players.

al-Qa'bong

It's a commonplace saying, but the season doesn't matter much (except to determine home-ice advantage) once the playoffs start.

The hothouse orchids who bloom so prettily when conditions are ideal often wither when exposed to the stresses of the post-season.

 

Quote:

But, looking at it dispassionately, I'm still stunned at the collapse of the 'Nucks in this SCS.  A 2-0 start to the series - I thought they might even win the Cup in four (but probably in five).  So, for the highest-scoring team in the league this year (I believe) to score only eight goals in seven games is hard to fathom.

I wouldn't call this a "collapse."  The Bruins play a perfect style for the playoffs, have a good goalie, and enough firepower to put the puck in the net.  Bruin fans probably recall a greater shock: when they had something like five of the top six scorers in the league during the season, yet were eliminated in the quarter-finals by a team that brought up a gangly unknown goalie in 1971.  I actually cheered for the Habs during that series.

Freedom 55
Northern Shoveler Northern Shoveler's picture

The vast majority of the youth on those streets are under employed and are facing a dismal future.  They were out enjoying the circus provided for the masses and a riot broke out.  That is also a very old tradition in western society.  How do the rulers keep the mobs happy.  Big screen TV's to cheer on thugs with sticks.  Broken backs career ending concussions no end I am sure of bruised and swollen body parts from cross checks and slashes.   Did I mention all the liquor and beer ads running on those big screen TV's while the police were telling people not to drink.

All delivered in the final extravaganza with an ethos that says the rules are meant to be arbitrary. The refs should just let the boys play and they should put their whistles away. The announcers cheer on the choosing of deserving and undeserving players.  Some players earn the respect of the refs and so at a critical point in the game they get a pass on a clear penalty.  Now other players are wimps and keep telling the ref to call the fucking penalties because as skilled players they have no ice space because of illegal manoeuvres.  Well they are whiners and divers and so we can ignore any penalties done too them but will call every single infraction against the players who want to be protected because in Canada everyone hates a whiner.

Hockey is a great metaphor for life in Canada.  You have the right to collective bargain until the crunch and then the government steps in and arbitrarily sets new rules different than the ones normally played under in the regular labour relations season up to and including the first couple of rounds of bargaining. Then the refs at the labour board put away their whistles and let the bullies in the corporate board rooms d things that are likely against the law but within the discretion of the refs.  The media then picks winners and losers.  Who can support a whiner with a pension when the majority of people in this system get screwed.  Canadians don't like greedy people who want more than their share seems to be the recurring theme in the MSM coverage of most disputes.

Strangely or not, the disappointed circus goer is far more volatile. I think that is just a emotional reaction to some unknown force taking away the euphoric high they were promised when the Canucks won the Cup. Rioting is what some underemployed youth have always done when gathered in drunken crowds. No politicians need apply.  The apolitical politician haters are usually the ones having the most fun by smashing symbols. 

I still think that for the vast number of young people who were downtown they may have learnt some transferable lessons if a large protest movement were to spontaneously break out.  The majority will have seen first hand that drunken louts are not a welcome addition to any crowd and that needless violence is not the model to follow. 

Northern Shoveler Northern Shoveler's picture

The Mainlander wrote:

Our “leaders” had reveled as young men and women over-consumed alcohol and representations of violence. And now those same leaders feign surprise, shame, and disgust as the cycle of consumption and powerlessness draws to its logical conclusion in tonight’s auto-conquest. Many sitting at home, their gazes fixed on the spectacle, do not like what they see reflected back at them. In denial, they construct mythologies, pretending that the rioters are exogenous, and few in number. The simple truth is that we all saw this coming. The reality is that the rioters were Vancouverites, and the spectacle they created accurately represented the values of a hedonistic Lotus Land, unchanged since 1994.

Surprised Money mouth

melovesproles

Yeah growing up in small town BC, my generation in high school was pretty good at showing up at low key community events and turning them into drunken orgies of destruction. 

The Parksville sandcastle riot was one instance.  The Peachfest riot another.  I also remember hitchiking home on Hornby Island the last year of Bike Fest and getting picked up by one of the organizers.  He was complaining about how it had turned into a big violent confrontation between police/security and drunken youths.  He said the festival was finished and that they'd wait a couple of years and maybe try to sneak it back but call it something like 'Jazz Fest.' 

Now when people organize festivals in BC they usually make them expensive in the hope that people who dish out a chunk of cash won't want to wreck the party. 

The shittiest thing about all this is that it's going to really hurt outdoor public events in Vancouver.  I was there on Friday night after the win and it was awesome!  Really cool and a nice atmosphere.  I'm sure there were people who came out last night with the intention of rioting but to be honest I think the positive energy that would have existed if Vancouver had won would have provided a sharp check on those who just wanted to loot and burn.  In hindsight, I seriously wonder if this wasn't narrowly avoided thanks to Sidney Crosby last year.  I wasn't in Vancouver, so the crowd might have been completely different but I do wonder.

But blaming this on hockey is beyond ridiculous.  Some people took advantage of a massive collective mood of drunken disappointment concentrated in the downtown.  I don't buy that there are any political benefits to come out of this although I guess it might be a bit of an economic stimulus for some of the local construction industries.

takeitslowly

They , mostly men, riot because they are too spineless to risk going to jail for something actually worthy fighting for, like democracy or human rights for sex workers or aboriginal people.

 

 

I don't want to sound sexist, but it appears that women are the one who have been inspiring lately when it comes to standing up for justice, like Bridgett Depape, they do it not when they are in a drunken state or over something purely symbolic (like the loss of the stanely cup) it's a sobering thought.

al-Qa'bong

So, they're brave enough to go to jail over...what...the Sedin's tacky shaving patterns?

Quote:

The Mainlander wrote:

 

Our "leaders" had reveled as young men and women over-consumed alcohol and representations of violence. And now those same leaders feign surprise, shame, and disgust as the cycle of consumption and powerlessness draws to its logical conclusion in tonight's auto-conquest. Many sitting at home, their gazes fixed on the spectacle, do not like what they see reflected back at them.

 

Good gravy; I haven't read such an overwrought, self-important piece of fishwrap since I escaped from grad school.

Catchfire Catchfire's picture

I watched the game in Montreal and no one seemed to care. They even clapped when Chara, who they booed throughout the game for his stanchion-assisted hit on Pacioretty, lifted the Cup in victory. Is class too much to ask for in hockey nowadays? I guess when the Forum has become an AMC and a Future Shop, the answer is a resounding no.

On that note, closing for length.

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