They did what?!

Pleas watch this first:

Shocking images. Personally, I can't understand these actions at all. Why someone would get so angry, for any reason, as to result in these actions. Most of the articles I have read about the night of the Stanley Cup Finals game have decided to decipher our society, compare it to other riots in Vancouver, or chalk it up to sports enthusiasts gone crazy.I am not going to compare this to any other riot that has happened in Vancouver or any other sporting riot. That is not my intention. I want to make it clear that I am just commenting on the situation as I viewed it. I am a mildly obsessive sports fan, and I felt as though I needed to put yet another (Yes, I know) opinion out there about what happened in Vancouver on June 15th, 2011.

Here is an opinion piece I just read off ESPN.com:

 http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-opinion/6668578/stanley-cup-finals-idiocracy-vancouver

Overall, I  understand where Sarah Spain is coming from when she writes about how our society has been desensitized to this type of vulgar behavior. I love Sarah Spain's sports coverage in general just for the record. But, one thing that I really don't agree with is when people generalize the public. With that, I really do not agree with the thinking that this has to do with our desensitization as a society. I will agree with the fact that we are used to the reality shows and vulgarity in movies and the such. But I do not believe that, as a society, we are desensitized to horrible acts such as this.

I was extremely shocked and appalled by the things that happened that evening. To add to that I know that almost everyone I saw tweeting and posting on Facebook were of the same opinion. I continued to watch not because I was desensitized to the horrible behavior of people, but because I am a news nerd and I wanted to know everything about what was happening and how the city was handling the situation.

I do also agree that many people are too generous about the idea that these were JUST sports fans... they do crazy things. I believe that most crazy sports fan are not insane. I would like to think the people that did this were not normal sports fans and it got out of hand because of the crowd mentality that Spain wrote about. This is not what would normally happen. And no, this was not because it was in Canada. I have heard people comment, even on my Facebook status: "Give it to Canada to get mad about a hockey game."

Here is more video from Russia Today:

I really despise what happened after this Stanley Cup Final game. It made the city of Vancouver look bad and  all Vancouver Canucks fans look bad. It was sick behavior. I literally felt nauseous as I watched live coverage from CTV online.

I can say that, like always, people exaggerated a bit. There was false information being put out. At least on Twitter, I saw a few posts saying that there were fatalities and that someone jumped from a building.

 I don't understand if this was actually a reaction to the game. Would it still have happened if the Canucks had won? I don't know that anyone has the answer to that question. Businesses and innocent people suffered at the expense of intensely angry people. Also, the fandom that is normally portrayed after a win such as that was, nonetheless, lacking because of the terrible news that was dominating the public's attention.

These events were tragic in my eyes.

So, I'd like to say... Congratulations to the Boston Bruins on a great series and a well-earned win!

P.S. I would like to stress that this does not affect my view of Vancouver Canucks fans or the city of Vancouver, just the ideals of a group of people that decided to ruin a good day of sports.