Vancouver hockey riot photo

Vancouver hockey riot June 15 2011. Robyn Hanson photo

Vancouver hockey riot 2011 pt 1

Periodically, we like to talk to Vancouver citizen Louise Papais about current events. Louise attended, with her season-ticket-holding father, last night’s playoff game in the Stanley Cup Final. As most of us know, it did not end well – not for the Vancouver Canucks, not for the city of Vancouver, and not for anyone in a Luongo jersey.

So we asked Louise about her night…

Shawn Conner: Tell me about your experience.

Louise Papais: It was grand.

SC: What do you mean, “It was grand”?

LP: I’m being sarcastic, stupid.

I told you from the start it was a disaster downtown. And that was before the game started. If I was going out with you still you would have made me really mad because you made me really mad even though I don’t know you anymore with your text: “Aren’t you happy sitting in the stadium?” No I wasn’t. I wasn’t happy. It took us forever to get to the stadium.

It was a disaster downtown. An absolute disaster.

SC: What was the game like for you?

LP: Awful. It was an awful game. I thought my dad was getting really excited but right from the get-go he was somber and morose and I thought “Oh no, he’s just taking me because I want to go and he doesn’t.” Right from the beginning when he picked me up at my house he said he had a bad feeling that it wasn’t going to go well. And I said, “Really? I think they will [win]. I know it.”

I was bad about it too but I wasn’t going to give up because I’d predicted they were going to win, way back when they beat Chicago I had a good feeling they were going to win in five. And I’m so good at predicting things.

SC: [laughs] You’re terrible at predicting things.

LP: No no no. I’m not. I’m bad at predicting when babies are going to happen because I didn’t understand how the Chinese birth chart works.

I was doing it wrong. I was doing it the opposite.

Okay, so… but even the predictor, the guy who was right about 13 out of 14 Stanley Cups said that it was going to be Vancouver. And all of my Facebook friends who were doing the stats about it, the city that hosts the Olympics wins the Stanley Cup the same year and they listed the last seven and we were the one! But nope. Not gonna be. What the hell happened? What the hell is that? It was hopeless. After they [the Bruins] got the first goal I was like, “Nnn-mm.” Even though my dad was saying to me when we sat down, “Well we gotta get that first goal” and I go, “We will, we will.” And he looked at me kind of morosely and I said, “Oh no, I know we will.” But nope! We didn’t!

And so I thought, oh, okay, well we can deal with that, it’s just one, even though it takes the Canucks FOREVER to get a goal past that Thomas that fucking amazing goalie they fucking have. Then they got the second one in and I knew it was over. Maybe one game they scored two. But it was always one. So I knew it was over. And three – I would happily have gone home at that point. Because then it was really over. Then they would have had to score four to win. It was over at the second period.

SC: When you finally left…

LP: No, we waited for the Stanley Cup to get brought out.

Oh my God! I don’t know if the fans were being really nice or if they were trying to be sarcastic but when there was one minute play, whoever was left – three-quarters were left – people just stood up and started waving their towels and cheering the Canucks on even though it was a hopeless dream.

You know Gary Bettman? Did you hear about that?

SC: He was drowned out…

LP: Oh my God! The booing was unbelievable. Boy people fucking hate him. Fucking Bettman. It was brutal. According to the Internet I was reading they said that was the worst – he’s used to getting booed but this was the worst booing ever ‘cos you couldn’t even hear him. Fuckin’ hate his guts. Goofball.

Anyway it was really nice, though. The fans cheered when Thomas picked up the trophy. Our fans. They were really good sports. And cheered for all the other guys. ‘Cos there was one player on their team that’s from here, Lucic? His parents were there because they live here. Then what?

I hobbled out with my dad. I thought it was going to be a nightmare leaving but a lot of it had dispersed, it wasn’t bad like when we came, but when we were walking it was kind of like a nuclear holocaust…

(to be continued)

More pics of the riot and destruction (photos by Ryan West):