Poor M5

[_HighVoltage_]

Yeah, a professional hockey team should be banned for what their stupid fans did...

^ Happened to soccer teams from an entire country. I think it was in the mid 80s, all English clubs were banned for 5 years from the UEFA cup and other European competitions because of their associated hooligan supporters.

YES! When fans go as far as demolishing a city, then the team should suffer as well! I hope the police catches a lot of the rioters and punishes them in the appropriate manner.

 

[MacGuffin]

Scenes like that always make me furious and depressed at the same time.

It proves, that humans didn't change in the last 75 years, no matter how peaceful our lives currently are. The fact remains, that humans take great pleasure from blind destruction. Add alcohol and the disinhibiting effect of a large croud and the thin layer of "civilization" is peeled away from us almost instantly. Maybe some are more prone to that than others but it's in everyone of us.

I must think of those dark 1970's future movies. For a while I really thought, that such movies were being too pessimistic and unrealistic and that we're on a way into a better future than that.

But as time goes by and seeing how our political leaders are all out for only preserving their interests, keeping their power and protecting their skin, not having a future vision or the will to look further ahead than the next elections, to see how money is the true ruler of the world, how the integrity of our peaceful western civilization slowly erodes, while giving room to nationalism and populism again and how easily people are starting to fall for it again, I might need to rethink my optimistic tenor...

People are feeling too safe these days in their wealth. They think we have mastered two world wars and the (in reality not-so-cold) Cold War and can live in peace forever now.

But scenes like frm that riot prove, that the animal is still inside everyone of us.

Enjoy this quiet period in our history, folks. Because sooner or later we'll be at each other's throats again, it's only a matter of if but of when. I hope I don't live to see it.

In the meantime, watch the riot scene of the movie "Soilent Greeen". It was considered drastic in 1970's but I really think it rapidly starts making sense, because dealing with a riot like in the OP movie, is no more than dealing with a herd of animals.

(sorry, if I got carried away a little but I cannot help but think how those youngsters, who violently attack a car without reason in that video, would behave as soldiers in a war)

 

[GRtak]

YES! When fans go as far as demolishing a city, then the team should suffer as well! I hope the police catches a lot of the rioters and punishes them in the appropriate manner.

The best way to hurt the team and prevent this in the future is to limit the amount of alcohol that can be served to a ticket holder during the course of a game. Or just ban alcohol sales at the game.

 

[CrzRsn]

The best way to hurt the team and prevent this in the future is to limit the amount of alcohol that can be served to a ticket holder during the course of a game. Or just ban alcohol sales at the game.

I can almost guarantee you that 90% of those rioters were watching the game at home, not at the arena. How many of those crazy students could afford tickets to a Stanley Cup Finals game? Superbowl XLIII happened down in Florida, but that didn't prevent Steelers fans from going crazy up in Pittsburgh. And that was for a win, not a loss.

 

[JipJopJones]

The "Anarchists and professional troublemakers" has been debunked, sadly. It's the same with the yearly May Day riots in my home town. It might have been about "revolution" or "politics" in the 80s, but today it's bored white upper-middle class kids getting a kick out of fighting the police. That's no small group, that's a quite big amount of people. Police over here lists "advernture-orientated youths" as a bigger factor in rioting then people with a cause, like anarchists, soccer fans or neo-nazis.

I'm not saying regular joes didn't participate in the riot. But there were people who brought crowbars and molotovs to a hockey game. That says to me that they weren't there for the hockey.

 

[Pininfarina_]

In that case...their team should be banned from playing for at least one year.

Rioters and hooligans that aren't even fans, didn't even watch the game, or watched only the finals should definitely represent the actions of true fans that HELPED CLEAN THE CITY AFTERWARDS.

Yes, that will fix the situation perfectly!

 

[GerFix]

I can almost guarantee you that 90% of those rioters were watching the game at home, not at the arena. How many of those crazy students could afford tickets to a Stanley Cup Finals game? Superbowl XLIII happened down in Florida, but that didn't prevent Steelers fans from going crazy up in Pittsburgh. And that was for a win, not a loss.

I thought the news reported they were showing the game on outdoor big screens in town. This doesn't seem a good idea, as these things rarely attract anything other than crowds of yobs.

Regardless of whether the rioters were true fans or not, when events like this provide a catalyst for this kind of behaviour, city councils etc. would be quite justified in shutting them down for the protection of the greater population in the future.

 

[CrzRsn]

As Canuck fans rioted on the streets of Vancouver Wednesday night, two Facebook groups sprang up amid the mayhem ? one encouraging Vancouverites to clean up after the riot, and another hoping to identify the instigators.

Rioters took to the streets after the hosting Canucks lost the Stanley Cup final to the Boston Bruins 4-0.

Disgruntled fans burned cars, set fire to trash cans and looted several downtown stores, throwing the city's downtown core into chaos for several hours following the game.

But those opposed to the riots took their views online, joining social media campaigns to express their disdain.

A Facebook campaign that aimed to identify rioters and looters had attracted almost 20,000 people in less than 12 hours.

Witnesses were encouraged to post pictures of rioters in the act, in the hopes that they might be recognized and identified.

"People need to be held accountable for their actions and face the consequences under any circumstances," Jaime Porteous wrote on the group's Facebook wall.

"Prosecute the thugs," wrote Lorraine Bennett. "Clearly they hate the Canucks, they hate Vancouver."

A second Facebook group launched Wednesday called for Vancouver residents to clean up after the riots.

The "Post Riot Clean-Up ? Let's help Vancouver" group had more than 12,500 people Thursday morning saying they would attend.

"Invite all of your friends! Let's see if we can get Vancouver looking like a new city by noon Thursday!" says the page creator, Smitty Smith.

A new site dubbed the Vancouver 2011 Riot Criminal List has been created on the microblogging service Tumblr, calling for pictures to help identify rioters.

Police are asking anyone with video evidence, photographs, or witness accounts to contact them.

Police are getting lots of help from the public in tracking down people who took part in the riot, Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu told reporters at a news conference Thursday.

"By 5 a.m. this morning we had 120 tips on the tipline. Members of the public are sending us their videos and we are adding those to the thousands of minutes of video that we shot ourselves. We are fully committed to tracking down the criminals and arresting them for the crimes," he said.

CBC's Meera Bains walked through some of the worst-hit areas later in the day and saw that the community response wasn't just online.

Dozens of people were stopping by Granville Street and West Georgia to write messages and help clean up.

A home-made sign in Canucks colours said "On behalf of my team and my city, I'm sorry."

Tia Mar said she saw posts about the cleanup on Facebook and decided to come down and help.

"I couldn't even sleep at 6:30 in the morning," Mar said. "I'm like, I've got to do something about this."

Some businesses were handing out bottles of water to volunteers and the city said the response was overwhelming, Bains said.

Bains said the city was much cleaner later in the day, but she noted that there is still a lot of damage and many boarded windows downtown.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/06/16/bc-riot-vancouver-facebook.html

Hooray for responsible fans.

 

[Aircooled]

Scenes like that always make me furious and depressed at the same time.

It proves, that humans didn't change in the last 75 years, no matter how peaceful our lives currently are. The fact remains, that humans take great pleasure from blind destruction. Add alcohol and the disinhibiting effect of a large croud and the thin layer of "civilization" is peeled away from us almost instantly. Maybe some are more prone to that than others but it's in everyone of us.

I must think of those dark 1970's future movies. For a while I really thought, that such movies were being too pessimistic and unrealistic and that we're on a way into a better future than that.

But as time goes by and seeing how our political leaders are all out for only preserving their interests, keeping their power and protecting their skin, not having a future vision or the will to look further ahead than the next elections, to see how money is the true ruler of the world, how the integrity of our peaceful western civilization slowly erodes, while giving room to nationalism and populism again and how easily people are starting to fall for it again, I might need to rethink my optimistic tenor...

People are feeling too safe these days in their wealth. They think we have mastered two world wars and the (in reality not-so-cold) Cold War and can live in peace forever now.

But scenes like frm that riot prove, that the animal is still inside everyone of us.

Enjoy this quiet period in our history, folks. Because sooner or later we'll be at each other's throats again, it's only a matter of if but of when. I hope I don't live to see it.

In the meantime, watch the riot scene of the movie "Soilent Greeen". It was considered drastic in 1970's but I really think it rapidly starts making sense, because dealing with a riot like in the OP movie, is no more than dealing with a herd of animals.

(sorry, if I got carried away a little but I cannot help but think how those youngsters, who violently attack a car without reason in that video, would behave as soldiers in a war)

That was rather pessimistic.

 

[Anesthesia]

When hockey fans start behaving like football hooligans it's a sad day indeed.

 

[MacGuffin]

That was rather pessimistic.

I know. Sorry for the rant.

But you always have to consider, that competitions between people -- sports like football, soccer, ice-hockey or car races -- are from a sociological standpoint a substitute for war -- a way to deal with human aggression and channel it into something harmless. That's always been so, ever since the Olympic Games in ancient Greece.

And when the spectators obviously don't get enough anymore from just watching a game but decide to take the "competition" out into the streets, this has to be scrutinized.

Just my two cents, though.

 

[ninjacoco]

I just don't understand this riot at all. You people live in a developed country. You have access to basic human needs like food and shelter. Your government isn't run by tyrants. GO HOME.

I like Dr_Grip's idea--I hope these asshats don't get a free weekend until they're too old to have any fun. Massive kudos to the guys who want to help clean it up.

Part of me is glad there were so many cell phones recording this. At least the cops have substantial identifying info to work with. Part of me, though, thinks some of these guys ought to be kicked in the nuts for not helping out these chicks. If a couple guys HAVE video on this going, get your ass in there and help the girls out.

Is it bad that I wouldn't mind seeing these guys' names leaked online for some good ol' fashioned trolling justice? If you pick on those who are weaker than you, you deserve to be publicly humiliated.

 

[Dr_Grip]

I can almost guarantee you that 90% of those rioters were watching the game at home, not at the arena. How many of those crazy students could afford tickets to a Stanley Cup Finals game? Superbowl XLIII happened down in Florida, but that didn't prevent Steelers fans from going crazy up in Pittsburgh. And that was for a win, not a loss.

I thought the news reported they were showing the game on outdoor big screens in town. This doesn't seem a good idea, as these things rarely attract anything other than crowds of yobs.

I'd like to add one thing here: I think that punishing the teams works to a degree as a self-regulatory measure between fans. At least over here there's enough contact between "ultras"/"Allesfahrer", i.e. hardcore but (mostly) non-violent fans and the hooligan scene for this to work. Nevertheless, or even because of "ghost games" (games in an empty stadium after riots) hooligan groups in Europe completely shifted their focus on what they call the "third half-time" since the nineties: They meet miles away from the stadium, sometimes even in a different town, on game day to bash each others head in without interference by non-violent fans or the police. Either hockey hooliganism isn't this far developed or this riot really was mostly a teenage power phantasy (like Kreuzberg's May Day riots) and not related to hooliganism at all.

Second thing: Complaints about youth violence and the deterioration of society can be traced back until the ancient greek philosophers and frankly, I can't see how they are more credible now than then.
Up until the 18th or 19th century, you'd have already been drafted at age 16 to 20, so your potential for violence would have been put to use on the battlefield. Since then, other outlets had to be found:
One of the most popular children's movies from the "old" (as in pre-unification) Bundesrepublik Germany, "The flying classroom" starts off with a fight between two rivaling groups of sixty-graders, using wooden planks, spades and whatelse as weapons. Made in the fifties, no one though this depiction of youth violence was anything but a harmless display of adolescent competitiveness. So maybe the sensibilities have changed.
Or take the 80s, when all over Europe punks and disco/pop fans met to beat each other up (I once met an overweight, most likely conservative-voting middle-management type guy who proudly confessed to being in a legendary brawl with over 100 participants in my home town when he was a teen). Or the Brighton riots between mods and rockers in the 70s... or the 1947 Hollister riot - in both cases the rioters "took over the town".
The list literally goes on and on.

EDIT:One thing I agree with is MacGuffins diagnosis that the relative political stability of our time has something to do with it. It's known sociologically that one of the main motivations for adolescents to take part in the (peaceful) 1989 rallies in the GDR that finally led to the fall of the wall was that it was "the first exciting thing happening here in all our lives)". A political cause, fought for violently or non-violently, gives an outlet to the unrest potential of the youth, just like war did earlier. Eventough there's a lot of things going wrong right now, the youth has not picked up a cause yet....

 

[frankiess]

Wow, this nearly brought a tear to my eye. Sure, insurance will cover most of it, but seeing something like this happen to your own car must scar for life.

I'm really glad for the support groups in Facebook and the people rallying up their support in these sorta cases. There might be some hope for humanity yet.

 

[ninjacoco]

Oh, and this:

...should've happened more often.

 

[Derek]

My reaction to that first video;

 

[awdrifter]

They can probably be changed with arson or something if they are identified. I hope they get some jail time. This is rediculous.

 

[freefall]

I have no idea what the fuck are you lot advocating (only read the first page). Floor it through the crowd? I guess you would sleep well knowing that you have killed and injured a number of people just to save your car. Better still, imagine what happens if, for whatever reason, you end up stationary. And damn, some of that would be well deserved. I mean, use your head ok, it's there for a reason. Guess you never got drunk and never did stupid things.

So cut it.

 

[thevictor390]

I have no idea what the fuck are you lot advocating (only read the first page). Floor it through the crowd? I guess you would sleep well knowing that you have killed and injured a number of people just to save your car. Better still, imagine what happens if, for whatever reason, you end up stationary. And damn, some of that would be well deserved. I mean, use your head ok, it's there for a reason. Guess you never got drunk and never did stupid things.

So cut it.

I'm not sure who you're referring to, but no, I have never gotten drunk and as a result done something stupid, and I plan to keep it that way. That's not an acceptable defense for anything. But I would never advocate running down the crowd over a car either.

 

[_HighVoltage_]

I have no idea what the fuck are you lot advocating (only read the first page). Floor it through the crowd? I guess you would sleep well knowing that you have killed and injured a number of people just to save your car. Better still, imagine what happens if, for whatever reason, you end up stationary. And damn, some of that would be well deserved. I mean, use your head ok, it's there for a reason. Guess you never got drunk and never did stupid things.

So cut it.

My sentiments toward the car are very small. I feel really bad for the girls. And not because they are girls - because they are human beings and they are totally helpless in a situation so brutal that borders on inhuman. They might as well have been raped. The brutality of the situation is on par.

Fuck the car. What about humanity? Who treats fellow human beings like that?

Regarding your comment about the alcohol - yes, I have been drunk many times and have done stupid things, but I do them only to myself. I have never caused mayhem or hurt people around me.