It was a riot.

Yesterday was crazy. On the ferry between Victoria and Vancouver our captain did an announcement saying that the Boston Bruins fan he saw get on board was on the wrong boat. And thus, the tone was set. I can't even describe the sheer number of blue and white jerseys everywhere...the beer bongs on the skytrain ... the straight up 'get wasted' feel to the day.

A 20-something guy on our bus had painted his face in the mirror and wrote everything backwards by accident.

Ryan went to take a picture of this car...

...and ended up with this picture. Ha!

So we were in Vancouver, yes. We did not riot though. In fact, we watched a disappointing hockey game in a fancy apartment building on a big screen, chugged some champagne even though we lost, then went to a Greek restaurant a few blocks away from thousands of drunk idiots yelling, smashing shit and burning cars. Our waiter said an hour before the restaurant had filled with tear gas. We could smell it in the streets too.

This is how the streets looked when we first arrived in Vancouver, a few hours before the game: busy but not scary. Everybody was partying and um, not burning things? Also...like the shirt I had made for the occasion?

Um, okay, maybe it was a little scary...haha

After watching the game in this super duper fancy apartment games room with a small crowd of very nice people, we started to walk back to our friends' house and overheard in the streets that a car was on fire. And sure enough, the sky was suddenly filled with black smoke. I joked about wanting to go see the burning car and our friend wondered aloud how one actually sets a car on fire. But I didn't actually consider going. Even though the photographer in me was insisting upon how awesome it would be to get "that shot".

The now-infamous kiss shot by Rich Lam. Wow.

But the brain in me decided it was a bad idea to be anywhere near violence and insubordination. So instead Ryan and I hung out with our super cool fun friends Chris and Sarah at their home. And got to bed at a decent hour.

Here are some sensational photos that I got from The Globe and Mail and The National Post.

You know, in case you haven't  seen them yet I guess. 

This was going on a few blocks from where we were drinking and eating and ignoring the drunk losers. 

Aren't police horses so formidable? And is that real blood in that last picture?

Sacred Heart is the tattoo shop Chris works at...and we were literally inside there like three hours before this picture was taken.

This morning on our way to the sky train station there were looted stores with smashed windows everywhere. But you know what else there was? Volunteers cleaning up the streets. Vancouverites are genuinely ashamed of what happened. And the majority of the idiot rioters were from out of town or the suburbs, and had come in specifically to cause trouble. In fact, on the ferry on our way in to the city we overheard five musclehead jock guys (who literally had frosted tips) saying how they can't wait to smash stuff when the game's over.

Ryan put it best:

"Yeah, these pictures show a thousand people doing stupid things, which is a lot of people, but there were a hundred thousand people there that night. So only one percent of the people were behaving like that."

In fact, we heard anecdotes on CBC's broadcast this morning about people standing in front of shops trying to prevent all the looting, people stopping a guy from throwing a homeless man's shopping cart full of cans around...and now there's facebook events and groups dedicated to cleaning up the city and finding the rioters one by one. I mean, I don't know how they think they'll get away with the things they were doing in this age of iPhones, twitter and digital cameras. Especially when they broadcast their participation on their Facebook status.

What. A. Retard. Or what about this guy?

Cover your face you damn fool. Anyway he already got caught. 

So um...yeah. Thanks to everyone for making this a night to remember I guess...

I guess we're officially hockey fans. I'm totally bringing my camera this time. Safely strapped to me, of course.

Well, right now I'm probably on a ferry on the way to Vancouver to party my bum off in the streets. Have you ever been somewhere when their hockey team is in the playoffs? I have once, when I lived near 17th ave in Calgary..aka "The Red Mile". It's bananas. Here's what it looked like:

pics from here and here

Total drunk retardville. So wish me luck! See y'all later.

Hockey

Welp, since I'm from Canada, obviously I like hockey, right?

Uh sort of, actually. Surprised? Me too.

It all started in high school, when like half of the boys in my grade were in hockey. And one awesome girl. We'd go sit in the chilly bleachers in not enough clothing and cheer them on with mildly inappropriate-for-a-family-environment rhymes and drink hot chocolate. They pretended we weren't there but we had fun.

Today three of my little brothers are in hockey. It used to be the cutest thing in the world, and now that they're getting older it's fascinating to watch how they no longer trip over their own skates and know how to stop on a dime. They're actually pretty good! Still cute, too.

So I've always kind of enjoyed watching hockey games, as long as I knew the players. Until I moved in with Ryan. Ryan is a hockey fanatic. He's one of those dudes who yells at the TV (and scares the dog, haha). He dominates hockey pools and can predict what the coaches will do two periods before they do it. He's growing a playoff beard and has a specific outfit he has to wear every time the Canucks are playing. I came home to this lovely sign in our front window last week:

I mean...I am living with a major hockey fan. And since there's been a game on our TV every day or every second day for months now, I'm growing to like it. I finally learned who the Sedins are and what 'offside' means, haha.

Anyway a couple days ago the Vancouver Canucks were playing a big game, the one that determined whether or not they were going to go on to the next round, in which they could win the Stanley Cup. They were losing by one goal and there were fifteen seconds left when they scored, tying the game and forcing it into overtime.

For those who don't know, Vancouver is a pretty big city (for Canada, at least). I think around two million people live there, more or less. Check out these deserted streets. This video was filmed right downtown, from an apartment window. All is a little too quiet until around 25 seconds in. You can hear faint cheering, people going "GO!" "YEAH" from inside homes. And then at 35 seconds is when they scored that goal. I don't know about you guys but this video makes me smile. 

 

:)