party crashers

They rise up out of their parents' basements, tank up on booze, and look for a fight. The word goes out that some hapless kid is having a party because the folks are out, and they swarm the place, destroy and steal things, and fight. The police are called. People end up traumatized, people end up in hospital. It happens all the time. It's a micro example of the macro event that happened to Vancouver the night that Boston won the Stanley Cup.

The scene outside my window.

It was not about the hockey. Hockey's a game. It was not about the Canucks losing. Every team lost, except Boston. The Canucks just got to play longer. They were fabulous this season, and gave the city a tremendous lift in spirit, and it was great, but it wasn't the end of the world that they lost to a better team. They'll be playing again next year, working hard to be the best team. And we'll all be cheering them on next year. But get real; the team may play in Vancouver, but the players are hired to do a job. That's why the only 'real' Vancouver player, Killarney boy Lucic, was playing for Boston. We can cheer that. The Stanley Cup will come to Vancouver! Brought by an actual Vancouverite! But it's fun to pretend, and it's fun to cheer for 'our team' to win. Face it. You win some, you lose some, but it doesn't necessarily make you losers.

No, the losers are the poor saps who decided, in a strangely twisted way of (not) thinking, that they would crash the party.

In behind those building? The scenes of the crimes.
Hard to believe.

They rode into town on ferries, skytrains, buses (no concept that a lot of hard work and expense went into those systems, whatever, who cares). Maybe they even drove, parking well away from the 'fan zone.' They were excited to use the excuse of a hockey game to attack the city that somehow offends them. A lot of guys brought tools for the job. They certainly weren't coming for the hockey game. Lots of them, I'm sure, will be 'known to police.' More troubling are the huge numbers swept up in the excitement, part of a hyena pack, clueless to the harm they were causing, or worse, not caring, just glad to be able to join in smashing and stealing things. Empathy sadly lacking. It's almost like the mob (non)brain is a force of nature; there's no stopping the flood. It's mindless and it's extremely dangerous.

I felt the same despair watching as one young woman I saw on the news. She was trying to stop people from destroying a car on Seymour Street. "What's wrong with you people?" There is no answer to that. Nothing. Everything.

It's a common story in Wild West stories, the thin veneer of civilization on the frontier. The mild-mannered townspeople are always totally gobsmacked by the gang of thugs riding into town to destroy things, and there are never enough sheriffs or enough citizens brave enough to get in the way, though there are always some, as there were here. What we did see here was young people behaving incredibly badly, with some kind of utterly lame-brained sense of entitlement to just help themselves to other peoples' things. And the taunting/hatred of the police as if they are the enemy? Earth to the rioters: you are the enemy. You are why we have a police force.

The route out of Dodge. The
game has just ended, and smart
fans are crossing the bridge.

This is an expensive city. I don't think we actually have enough young people living here to get that many drunken louts downtown. No, we invited the neighbours to a party, and the word got out. Then the crashers assaulted us. The fault doesn't lie with the people who held the party, it lies with those who wrecked it. Unfortunately though, even if we manage to toss them all into jail, it's us that gets to pay to keep them there.

I've heard them called idiots, bullies, hooligans, yahoos, fools, scum, psychopaths, thugs, and it's hard to disagree. A lot of the faces I've seen in images are very young. Some of them might even be bright, who knows? But they seem to have missed that we're all in this together, that their stupid and completely criminal actions will cost our city an unimaginable amount of money, in repairs, in tourism, in insurance, in court costs, in the inevitable studies and reports. I hope they will be ashamed of themselves. I also hope they enjoy the crowded remand centres when they get arrested, as the money is now a bit more stretched.

I came upon a "pity party"
 (their phrase), laughing on
the street.

I could hear the helicopters buzzing over downtown, never a good sign. So I thought I'd go for a walk, and see how my part of the city felt, while the mob slouched through our downtown. There was a sense of letdown out here in normal-land, but it was in perspective; we lost the game, oh well, isn't it a beautiful night?

So yeah, the trash trashed us, and we're all feeling the bafflement and pain, and yes, wariness, after falling victim to an utterly senseless assault. It'll take some time to get over, but it won't keep us out of the downtown, and we may still have parties. Carefully.

Just please don't tell me I'm responsible for my black eye. I didn't punch myself in the face.

False Creek, looking northwest, as the sun goes down.