Memo to Vancouver hockey rioters: Get a grip.
Last night, the Boston Bruins broke millions of Canadians’ hardened hockey hearts with what really was a well-deserved win in the Stanley Cup final. The street riots in downtown Vancouver began within minutes, making headlines as far away as India and Australia and gaining prominent play on the New York Times and CNN websites. The Washington Post carried a photo of a fan waving a Canadian flag beside a burning pickup truck.
The riots occurred 17 years and a day after 50,000 to 70,000 fans trashed parts of their city in response to the Canucks’ last near-miss.
This is not the Vancouver I know. To say that it’s time to get a few things in perspective doesn’t begin to cut it.
Everyone in our office wanted to see Lord Stanley’s cup come home to Canada. But losing the Stanley Cup, or even winning it, was not the most important thing that happened in Vancouver in the last 10 to 30 years.
Vancouver is where researchers formally unveiled the medical advances that led to the first treatments for HIV/AIDS. Some delegates to the 11th International Conference on AIDS in 1996 had been told long before the meeting that they only had weeks or months to live. By the time they got onsite, the drugs were working and the virus could no longer be detected in their bloodstreams.
Vancouver hosted the 1976 United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, one of the first international meetings to take a close look at the economic, environmental, and social impacts of rapid urbanization. Thirty years later, the World Urban Forum drew attention to the “social time bomb” of a billion people living in slums around the world.
Vancouver has set itself the audacious goal of becoming the world’s greenest city by 2020 and wowed the global meetings industry by opening a breathtaking, LEED Platinum convention centre in 2010.
Vancouver is home to the incomparable Wosk Centre for Dialogue, a facility whose very design and atmosphere pretty much demand that participants conduct themselves with respect and dignity, make good use of their time onsite, and generate lasting results afterwards.
This is not to suggest that Vancouverites should riot for the billion people who live in slums or the tens of millions of orphans who’ve lost both parents to AIDS. Much better for them to take the content and urgency of any number of events their city has hosted, add the tone of their local conference or convention centre, and get a life.
At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious (repeat after me, now)…the Canucks had a great season, but it’s a game. How can we be moved to senseless action by a sports score, but remain blissfully silent about problems that are huge, scary, and utterly preventable?

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Hockey Night in Canada last night was disgraceful.
I was truly disappointed in such POINTLESS violence! If we were protesting inhumane treatment, poverty, hunger, I’d get that!… But because we lost a Hockey GAME? I think that in addition to finding and charging those mischief makers last night, organizers and politicians should ban all hockey in Vancouver for 1 year send a clear statement that such behavior is unacceptable. At first I thought just professional hockey … but I believe that if Vancouver should decide to cancel ALL organized hockey for 1 year… fans, residents, the rest of the world and every little future hockey player/fan might learn a valuable lesson… In Canada, violence will not be tolerated.
Thank you for posting this important and relevant perspective. this morning, numerous Vancouverites have arrived downtown with brooms to voluntarily assist in the clean up, and thousands more are blogging and Facebooking to re-state over and over that these were not hockey fans but thugs, and do not represent the heart or spirit of Vancouverites who are proud of their city, and ashamed of what transpired yesterday. You are right – let’s turn such passion into positive action for what really matters. And that starts with face to face dialogue.
Thank you for this meaningful blog. Like all of my colleagues at the Vancouver Convention Centre and everyone in the city, I’m very saddened by the events that unfolded after the game last night. This is not a reflection of Vancouver. What we’ve seen this morning – the actions of hundreds of volunteers who came downtown with garbage bags and brooms in hand to help clean up – really is.
You’ve highlighted some significant Vancouver achievements that we should be very proud of, including the international conferences hosted here that have sparked important discussions on issues that really matter. This, along with the hospitality and kindness of our city, should not be overlooked by the actions of a minority who do not represent the true spirit of Vancouver.
Another excellent response from Vancouver, this one from outside the industry. The post is long and the language gets rough, but you’ll see why.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/notes/morgan-brayton/dear-hooligans/10150211620676771