They Were ‘Real Hockey Fans’ – A Dispatch From Vancouver

By Dave Draper

(The following is a dispatch  from Dave Draper, who lives in Vancouver’s downtown area and is the brother of Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper. His observations speak to a view that the modern-day culture of hockey violence set the scene for the violence that erupted in the streets of Vancouver over the night of June 15 and 16.)

The overturned and burning police car was five blocks from our place. We could look out our window and see the black smoke.rising above the office towers and high-rises.

This Vancouver rioter, wearing a Canucks shirt and waving a hockey stick. And he's not a hockey fan? Give us a break.

Interestingly, we could see the news helicopter circling overhead, HEAR it’s rotors churning, and, in real-time, see the images from it’s camera on out TV. Play-by-play…. just like a hockey game! For weeks, that crowd had been geared up for an emotional evening and they were going to have one, one way or the other.

After all, hockey, like football and soccer but even more so by virtue of the totally permissive attitude toward intra-game fist fighting, is a sport which appeals to the emotions more than the intellect. There aren’t many riots after an international chess match!
Don Cherry et al. have always argued that the sport of hockey would ‘lose something’ if you prohibited fighting. Of course, that’s absolutely right, and the thing it would lose is money. But now, after yet another ‘hockey riot’, The rhetoric we’re hearing is that “these were not the REAL hockey fans”. Isn’t that ironic? After decades of catering to exactly this type of mentality, the sport and it’s sponsors disown these people!

If you’re ever feeling suicidal, just got to Europe during a soccer riot and yell out, “You’re not a  real soccer fans!”.
If what happened was such a surprise to everyone, then why the pre-emptive dispatch of thousands of police officers?

The fact is that the damage done is a drop in the bucket compared to the profits made during the season, so the city absorbs a hockey riot every so often.

Everyone I talked to before the final game knew that, win or lose, this was going to happen! But, since ‘we must not question having a hockey franchise’ because of the money it generates, we try to make ourselves believe that this riot was NOT caused by hockey fans.

Let’s face it. Vancouver just got Don Cherried!

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