And so it ends…
Vancouver crashes and burns. Literally.
Boston wins the Stanley Cup. Deservedly.
And for the record -- what happened in Vancouver last night doesn't have anything to do with hockey.
Of course, I'm talking about the aftermath of the game.
But I could be talking about the game itself.
Vancouver should have won. Could have won. But it was clear that Boston wanted it more.
For all the skill and finesse required by the greatest game, it requires something more, something that's come to be known as "a willingness to pay the price".
And for all their laudable traits, Vancouver seems to have a goalie more full of self than team, a coach with only one game plan and a couple of guys up front who think talent is all it takes.
It isn't.
As for the city. I know that wasn't the real Vancouver last night. But let's be honest. It sorta was.
For too long, you've been too willing to ignore the problems because a slight turn of the head lets you focus on all the surrounding beauty instead. I realize it might crush your buzz, but it's time to deal with the gangs and the drugs and entitled takers in your midst. Otherwise the only world class cities you'll be compared to will be Baghdad and Kabul.
On the positive side, more than 2000 ordinary Vancouverites are on the streets this morning helping with the clean-up. Others set up a facebook page that already hosts thousands of pictures of the rioters, hundreds of whom are waking up to find their photos already name-tagged and captioned by friends or family unwilling to co-sign their bullshit.
It's a start.
And on the more positive side -- we've got WINNERS!!! in the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool.
DONOVAN FEURING takes the PROPS competition with 5 correct picks out of 6.
In the Big Contest…
Drumroll please…
Tim Stubinski finishes in First.
Mark Leiren-Young takes Second
And Carleen Kyle is Third.
I'll be in touch with all the winners over the next couple of days to get snail mail info and (once the Posties are back to work) Tim's address will be passed on to all you poolies, so the booty of your choosing can be delivered. The Legion will take care of rewarding 2nd and 3rd Place plus the Props winner.
And we'll be done for the 2010-11 Season.
I hope you all had fun and the Pool added a little something to your enjoyment of what's already the best Championship series in professional sport.
Ignore all the essays and editorials that will no doubt swirl over the next while linking Hockey to Hooliganism and what it all has to do with "The Media".
Those of us who work in "The Media" know they've always got to make it about themselves.
Don't worry.
Hockey, pretty much in the form we all love it, will be back next year. Actually, exhibition games begin in just 3 months.
And the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool will be back for a Sixth Season come next April.
I hope you'll come back as well. It's been fun having you around.
Your final standings:
2 comments:
Thanks for hosting! It was the first year that I've ever really cared, mostly because of the pool.
Vancouver does it again. On the hockey side, Toronto fans can take solace in knowing that thousands of miles away, another NHL city is about to enter their 5th decade without a Cup. Misery does love company.
Finishing 6th in the pool brings some solace to me as this is the first time I've matched my hockey wits with a pool of writers. This again proves my long held theory that 3 out of 4 writers are not as smart as musicians! lol
Vancouver does it again. As with the Olympics, commercial considerations are tantamount and first in line when the city wants to drive people downtown to the retail bar restaurant sections.
Vancouver decided to hold these
Hubris driven hockey victory parties while clearly ignoring public safety. Considerations for retail and entertainment
interests apparently, are more important than citizens lives, as exemplified by the more than 100 victims of violence, beatings stabbings and assaults.
Why is it that when the Olympics
were in town, everything that wasn't nailed down like postal and newspaper boxes, flower boxes, barricades etc were removed, lest someone use them as weapons and tools for destruction?
Why is it that 14 of 17 recommendations from the last riot in '94 were not implemented?
Any music promoter will tell you that location, location, location has everything to do with crowd control.
If you have 100,000 plus people gathering, you do it in a park, a field, a beach or any location that offers vast expanses of nothingness to trash. DUH.
Pretty hard to destroy millions of dollars of glass and loot when there is nothing to attack.
Also paid events are TOTALLY different from free. There are no restrictions on free events.
And why in anybody's planning vision are cars allowed in these zones...let alone police cars? The cops did this in Toronto at G20, except they left the doors open as an invite for the arsonists.
Vancouver does it again. While million dollar condos glisten high above the street level meanderings, somehow this city PRETENDS that there is no "problemo" with the thousands of shuffling homeless, addicted and disenfranchised in east Vancouver.
This city gives a whole new meaning to the entitlements of the Upper class. The sheer arrogance of the public safety officials is disturbing. They stated the Olympics and a 7 game NHL hockey series are the same. This is dubious at best.
One knows Canadians did not riot when we missed a gold medal and settled for a silver. There is no greater tension filled
atmosphere in Canada than a hockey crowd and in fact hockey riots have occurred for decades such as the Maurice Richard riot in Montreal.
Vancouver does it again. In a city and province where police are convicted of a racist fuelled drunken beating an East Indian paper man, or cop bullies on the beat who pushed over a handicapped woman in east Vancouver, or taser to death a disoriented Polish immigrant.
It's time that Canada start asking Lotus land why 4, that's right four times as many people die in custody in BC than in the rest of Canada?
WTF is going on out there on the west coast?
Just add an arrogant police force to the mix of "have and have nots" and you see outcomes from a cauldron that is continuously breeding anarchists and angry young men. DUH ...time to stop hosting circuses if you are not going to address those in need.
Vancouver does it again. Enters the world stage with world class events and then lets the world class idiots be the last image the world sees.
It's a bad case of "look at me look at me" gone terribly wrong. Somewhat like car surfing on a freshly waxed car in the rain.
Oh ya, in the upcoming 2011-2012 NHL season -- Go Leafs GO!
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