By now, regardless where you live in the world, there is 2 things you know about Vancouver from Wednesday June 15, 2011.
1st is - Our beloved Canucks lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals in convincing fashion 4-0 to the 2011 champions, the Boston Bruins.
2nd of course- is what the city got the majrity of the attention in the worldwide media for. The riots.
In 1994, we had a riot after losing a game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals as well. In that riot, I was much more near the epicentre, so much so, I walked around a corner onto Robson that night to see tear gas cannisters not far down the road & riot cops maybe 1/2 a block away. Early the next morning I came back thru the downtown core to see the wreckage that time and at the time couldnt believe how much glass & debris there was. I was sure, this could never happen here again, after all, the Cops would be prepared if it did happen again now.
Cue up, 2011. The team again loses. This time, the city had a large viewing party in the middle of the downtown streets for people to come and watch it at. Estimates put the crowd at over 100,000 people in a 4-6 block area.
Shortly after the game ended, violent acts started breaking out. These acts, seemingly happened with little to no build up, suggesting they were planned hooliganism by a specific bunch of individuals.
Storefronts were smashed in, some stores were looted, everything from electronics to tuxedos to cans of Pringles were stolen. Cars were turned over, some set on fire, including Police cars. Fights broke out around the area as drunken morons clashed with drunken retards.
I missed all of the major commotion. I was busy doing my primary job, getting autographs...which had I known how that was going to play out, I would have eagerly left it to document thru video & photgraphs the stupidity of some people. Knowing my mentality, I would probably have been hospitalized lol. I'm too stubborn to just sit back & watch people intentially cause havoc. So its probably for MY best interest I was sidetracked till it was too late.
of course, there was still things going on at Rogers Arena that were worth documenting. A man fell from the Georgia Viaduct to the ground outside the ticket windows of the arena, maybe 40 to 60 feet. If it werent for an awning a few feet above the ticket windows that broke his fall, his injuries likely would have been fatal. As it is, he had major head injuries, but from what I have heard & read, he did survive his self inflicted disaster. The man attempted to jump from 1 side of an overpass to another, with several feet in between, he failed to make the jump successfully & crashed down to the ground below.
A little later on, I noticed while out in a parking lot at my friends car, smoke billowing off to the side of a building, and with Rogers Arena in the foreground, it seemed fitting to photograph this, as it was an event inside that very arena that brought out the losers who created the now visible smoke from burned out vehicles. I have seen countless pics of the fires, and the smoke from other angles, but with Rogers Arena in the pic, not sure there has been such a pic out there.
After a few hours of unsuccessfully doing my job, then going for a verrry late dinner (which was actually very tough to do with the DT core essentially closed off) my friends & I, on word the cities bridges into the downtown core had been re-opened, after being closed to incoming traffic earlier to prevent potential troublemakers from joining in, decided to go in & see what type of havoc they had unleashed this time.
We parked our car in a parking lot just off of Granville & walked along Granville. I first noticed tossed garbage can on the ground with litter around it, as I moved up the street it appeared more of the bedlam was in the distance, but as it turned out, the very next block was when I came across our first "wow" moment.
At the corner of Nelson & Granville my friend & I were photgraphing damage to a Mega-Bite Pizza store when I noticed a car overturned around the corner. I told my friend instantly to come here. When I looked back after waving him over, I noticed a 2nd car, maybe 50-75 feet further up the road, also turned over. Ontop of it was a nerspaper box. We stayed around there photographing it for a bit, and got to watch the tow truck crew flip them back over so they could take them away. As we were leaving, we saw a Blenz Coffee shop that had their windows destroyed. There was staff still inside, clearly helpless to do anything against the mob of impotent priveleged mommas boys who can only act tough with their just as mentally challenged friends in tow. These ball-less pussies would shit themselves if they were by themselves because they would be too scared to do anything but piss themselves in & amongst all the insanity around them, but, with their eunich sidekicks, they suddenly are so "tough" & "bad" that they managed to beat up some windows at a coffee shop & pizzeria.
As I moved up the street, again saw many stores with broken or cracked windows. An American Apparel store, already boarded up. As I got closer & closer to ground zero, more & more damage was evident. Almost every business from Robson to Georgia had some level of damage to their storefronts, and in some cases, the interiors as well. First store I saw was Future Shop's front doorway. The store itself has a massive metal sliding door upstairs that likely prevented or at the least hindered any looting attempts, but the downstairs doors? Completely wiped out. Metal tables had been used to force their way thru the front doors. The Sears had a window broken on the skytrain side that looked like someone had used it to as a way in or out of the store. Across the street at London Drugs, panes of glass were missing on their sliding doors, and other panes were severely smashed.
On the other side of the street, perhaps the hardest hit store of all, The Hudsons Bay store. Windows on all 3 sides of the building decimated, doors ripped off the hinges, merchandise stands close to the windows stripped clean. Workers were already hard at work boarding up the damage & clearing out the majority of the glass. As I rounded the back side of the store, onto Seymoud street, I saw more windows destroyed & the most shocking of events, 3 different cars, burnt. Completely gutted by fire, so charred they were unrecognizable to likely even the owners. One had a ladder thru the front window that itself had been burned severely. Another had 2 newspaper boxes around them that you can clearly tell had been used on the cars earlier.
On my way home with my friend, we came across a bit more damage, we saw some of the damage at the Bank Of Montreal as well as the remnants of where the 2 cop cars had been torched.
Of course, these actions are horrible & reprehensable. Of course, anyone that has even a shred of common decency will turn in anyone they know who was involved. Of course, none of these ball less, spineless, gutless pussies will ever own up to doing any of it, because they're chicken shits who are scared of their own shadows when they arent with their friends.
Sadly, and more pathetically, the ones that have girlfriends. I cant even imagine what type of diseased gutterwhore trashbag skanks you "boys" must have that would stand behind/beside you thru any of this. Their as big of pieces of shit as you all are. They are the epitome of dumb useless, two dollar no, fifty cent no, buy two get one free does any one have change for a nickel skank ass sluts. Of course, they are probably far more lippy than you & I am sure 1 of these ladies of the night will come in here & tell me how they, or their boyfriend & his 10 friends (who he doesnt do anything without, including you I'm sure) would kick my ass blah blah blah.... that is, they WOULD do that, if they knew how to read.
I will certainly have another blog on the efforts of the real men & real women of our city who came down the next day to fix the stupidity that you mentally challenged inbreds caused.
1st is - Our beloved Canucks lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals in convincing fashion 4-0 to the 2011 champions, the Boston Bruins.
2nd of course- is what the city got the majrity of the attention in the worldwide media for. The riots.
In 1994, we had a riot after losing a game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals as well. In that riot, I was much more near the epicentre, so much so, I walked around a corner onto Robson that night to see tear gas cannisters not far down the road & riot cops maybe 1/2 a block away. Early the next morning I came back thru the downtown core to see the wreckage that time and at the time couldnt believe how much glass & debris there was. I was sure, this could never happen here again, after all, the Cops would be prepared if it did happen again now.
Cue up, 2011. The team again loses. This time, the city had a large viewing party in the middle of the downtown streets for people to come and watch it at. Estimates put the crowd at over 100,000 people in a 4-6 block area.
Shortly after the game ended, violent acts started breaking out. These acts, seemingly happened with little to no build up, suggesting they were planned hooliganism by a specific bunch of individuals.
Storefronts were smashed in, some stores were looted, everything from electronics to tuxedos to cans of Pringles were stolen. Cars were turned over, some set on fire, including Police cars. Fights broke out around the area as drunken morons clashed with drunken retards.
I missed all of the major commotion. I was busy doing my primary job, getting autographs...which had I known how that was going to play out, I would have eagerly left it to document thru video & photgraphs the stupidity of some people. Knowing my mentality, I would probably have been hospitalized lol. I'm too stubborn to just sit back & watch people intentially cause havoc. So its probably for MY best interest I was sidetracked till it was too late.
of course, there was still things going on at Rogers Arena that were worth documenting. A man fell from the Georgia Viaduct to the ground outside the ticket windows of the arena, maybe 40 to 60 feet. If it werent for an awning a few feet above the ticket windows that broke his fall, his injuries likely would have been fatal. As it is, he had major head injuries, but from what I have heard & read, he did survive his self inflicted disaster. The man attempted to jump from 1 side of an overpass to another, with several feet in between, he failed to make the jump successfully & crashed down to the ground below.
A little later on, I noticed while out in a parking lot at my friends car, smoke billowing off to the side of a building, and with Rogers Arena in the foreground, it seemed fitting to photograph this, as it was an event inside that very arena that brought out the losers who created the now visible smoke from burned out vehicles. I have seen countless pics of the fires, and the smoke from other angles, but with Rogers Arena in the pic, not sure there has been such a pic out there.
After a few hours of unsuccessfully doing my job, then going for a verrry late dinner (which was actually very tough to do with the DT core essentially closed off) my friends & I, on word the cities bridges into the downtown core had been re-opened, after being closed to incoming traffic earlier to prevent potential troublemakers from joining in, decided to go in & see what type of havoc they had unleashed this time.
We parked our car in a parking lot just off of Granville & walked along Granville. I first noticed tossed garbage can on the ground with litter around it, as I moved up the street it appeared more of the bedlam was in the distance, but as it turned out, the very next block was when I came across our first "wow" moment.
At the corner of Nelson & Granville my friend & I were photgraphing damage to a Mega-Bite Pizza store when I noticed a car overturned around the corner. I told my friend instantly to come here. When I looked back after waving him over, I noticed a 2nd car, maybe 50-75 feet further up the road, also turned over. Ontop of it was a nerspaper box. We stayed around there photographing it for a bit, and got to watch the tow truck crew flip them back over so they could take them away. As we were leaving, we saw a Blenz Coffee shop that had their windows destroyed. There was staff still inside, clearly helpless to do anything against the mob of impotent priveleged mommas boys who can only act tough with their just as mentally challenged friends in tow. These ball-less pussies would shit themselves if they were by themselves because they would be too scared to do anything but piss themselves in & amongst all the insanity around them, but, with their eunich sidekicks, they suddenly are so "tough" & "bad" that they managed to beat up some windows at a coffee shop & pizzeria.
As I moved up the street, again saw many stores with broken or cracked windows. An American Apparel store, already boarded up. As I got closer & closer to ground zero, more & more damage was evident. Almost every business from Robson to Georgia had some level of damage to their storefronts, and in some cases, the interiors as well. First store I saw was Future Shop's front doorway. The store itself has a massive metal sliding door upstairs that likely prevented or at the least hindered any looting attempts, but the downstairs doors? Completely wiped out. Metal tables had been used to force their way thru the front doors. The Sears had a window broken on the skytrain side that looked like someone had used it to as a way in or out of the store. Across the street at London Drugs, panes of glass were missing on their sliding doors, and other panes were severely smashed.
On the other side of the street, perhaps the hardest hit store of all, The Hudsons Bay store. Windows on all 3 sides of the building decimated, doors ripped off the hinges, merchandise stands close to the windows stripped clean. Workers were already hard at work boarding up the damage & clearing out the majority of the glass. As I rounded the back side of the store, onto Seymoud street, I saw more windows destroyed & the most shocking of events, 3 different cars, burnt. Completely gutted by fire, so charred they were unrecognizable to likely even the owners. One had a ladder thru the front window that itself had been burned severely. Another had 2 newspaper boxes around them that you can clearly tell had been used on the cars earlier.
On my way home with my friend, we came across a bit more damage, we saw some of the damage at the Bank Of Montreal as well as the remnants of where the 2 cop cars had been torched.
Of course, these actions are horrible & reprehensable. Of course, anyone that has even a shred of common decency will turn in anyone they know who was involved. Of course, none of these ball less, spineless, gutless pussies will ever own up to doing any of it, because they're chicken shits who are scared of their own shadows when they arent with their friends.
Sadly, and more pathetically, the ones that have girlfriends. I cant even imagine what type of diseased gutterwhore trashbag skanks you "boys" must have that would stand behind/beside you thru any of this. Their as big of pieces of shit as you all are. They are the epitome of dumb useless, two dollar no, fifty cent no, buy two get one free does any one have change for a nickel skank ass sluts. Of course, they are probably far more lippy than you & I am sure 1 of these ladies of the night will come in here & tell me how they, or their boyfriend & his 10 friends (who he doesnt do anything without, including you I'm sure) would kick my ass blah blah blah.... that is, they WOULD do that, if they knew how to read.
I will certainly have another blog on the efforts of the real men & real women of our city who came down the next day to fix the stupidity that you mentally challenged inbreds caused.
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