The Vancouver fans were gracious as the Boston Bruins accepted the Stanley Cup Wednesday night. Watching the opposing team celebrate on your home ice can't be fun, especially at the prices paid for a Game 7 ticket. But this was a sample of what the Vancouver fans are.
Unfortunately, the streets of downtown Vancouver were also filled with a small sample of what the Vancouver fans are. Oh, certainly most of them weren't really fans. And they really weren't. But the passion of Vancouver hockey fans has spilled over in bad ways before.
We touched a little on this sentiment before the do or die Game 7 with the Canucks hosting Chicago — the inferiority complex of the region when it comes to sports. And being told that your team, which has never won a Cup, is the odds-on favorite to win. But none of this justifies anything that happened on the streets of downtown Vancouver.
The standard in Canadian celebration — win or lose — is Montréal. There were reports of rioting and bad behavior during last year's Stanley Cup playoff run, sadly the norm. But the actions in Montréal didn't get much coverage below the 49th parallel. The French/English gulch and playoff rounds vs. Stanley Cup final has a bit to do with the difference in media coverage.
The Vancouver coverage had more to do with perceptions of top Canadian cities. There were the protesters in Toronto last summer for the G20 summits. A month earlier, there were the reactions after wins and losses by Les Habs. But a lot of the perception of Vancouver is either linked to a mellower version of Seattle and/or the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. And while rioting when you win seems odd, rioting when you lose, especially at home, is still seen as unfortunate.
And let's note that there were people in the crowd trying to get the rioters to stop. You don't usually see that in other sports riots. And Vancouverites rushed to help clean up the city the next day. Let's see if the MSM in the United States also reports on these parts of the story or just focuses on broken windows. Perception should be based on the whole story, not just the ugly parts.
Like it or not, this represents a small part of how people will perceive Vancouver and that is the ultimate shame. Vancouver is a beautiful place with people that are cool and warm at the same time. Then again, we can't judge the people of Detroit, Miami, and Los Angeles by their sports-related riots. But others will.
Though the passion was misguided (and a lot of what happened wasn't passion), Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan summed it up well when he said, "Boston fans may want it [the Cup]," though "these people need it."
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You do have to wonder what the picture has to do with the riot. But this picture was taken at the riot. And since everyone is talking about it, why should you feel left out. Proper credit for the photo is listed below. Nice to see someone had their priorities in check.
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The thing about Game 7 is that you know going in that it's the last game of the year. And Mark Donnelly and the Vancouver crowd gave everything during O Canada. The shade of red that Donnelly turned at the end is the kind of effort we wish had been seen on the ice once the puck has dropped.
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Canada has about 34 million people, about 1/10th the population of the United States. The numbers watching CBC for Game 7 averaged at 8.76 million Canadians, about ¼ of the population. And these numbers don't even include Americans who get the signal through cable or antenna in cities such as Seattle, Detroit, and Buffalo.
NBC earned a 5.7 overnight rating and 10 share, tying it for the best NHL mark ever. The American equivalent of the CBC mark would be about 77 million Americans.
The CBC record for a hockey game was the 2002 Olympics gold medal game with 8.96 million. Canadians love hockey.
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We can't compare NBC coverage to CBC coverage for Game 7, but it was worth noting that the CBC showed a replay of Peter Bergeron slashing Ryan Kesler's stick with no penalty being called. This approach to refereeing stems from hockey tradition (e.g., Game 7 Boston-Tampa Bay). But then again, the refs were reluctant to call obvious penalties on Boston from Games 1-6, so why should things have changed.
Glenn Healy knows enough about hockey tradition to know that is coming, but he made it clear that Vancouver was literally getting the short end of the stick.
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William Shatner is probably one of the most recognizable Canadians in the United States. Yet, the CBC showed Shatner in the crowd for Game 7. And while I can't confirm that Shatner wasn't shown on NBC, given his vivid display of Vancouver blue, even William Shatner couldn't get on American TV for Game 7.
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For those who have been watching the CBC coverage via the NHL Network, unfortunately for Game 7, the NHL Network blew off Coach's Corner and the after 2nd period segment. Yes, you want to capture the postgame coverage, but given that this is the last game of the year, why not have a 4-hour block available instead of a 3-hour block. What is the NHL Network going to cover anyway.
Still, we would be remissed if we didn't note that the NHL Network deserves kudos for showing the CBC rebroadcasts. They have made watching this series a lot more fun, especially when the NBC/Versus announcers became too biased, it hurt to watch them on TV.
The segments were available to American ISPs via cbcsports.ca.
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There were many good stories of winning the Cup, but there are two stories that are relevant to our mission.
Tomas Kaberle hadn't been to the playoffs since the lockout, not since 2004. Of course, this is because he has played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, so this was the first Stanley Cup finals he had played in. And he had a hard time with the transition. And he played rather poorly during the regular season for the black and gold and poorly in the playoffs. Yet Kaberle has won the Stanley Cup ring.
Chris Kelly also started the year with a poorly playing Canadian-based team, the Ottawa Senators. Kelly was also traded to Boston, and had trouble getting into the United States to play. Like Kaberle, Kelly had played his entire NHL career with that Canadian-based team, though Kelly went to the Stanley Cup finals in 2007.
So because they got traded from their Canadian-based team, they have a Stanley Cup.
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picture credit: Rich Lam/Getty Images
Now we have a great walkway that goes to the beach and to the canals that came from the partnership of community with government
Posted by: Jordans C | March 12, 2012 at 03:29 PM