“The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images” – Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord
After the Stanley Cup riot of 1994, a Georgia Straight article, titled “Stupidville” pondered: “[Vancouverites] had better decide what we want this community to be about, besides pretty vistas when it doesn’t rain. What shared tasks can we undertake whose achievement will fill us with civic pride? What conditions are needed to come to unconditionally love this place, not for where it is, but for what it is?” But after 15 years of more pretty vistas and nature fetishism, we have failed to produce “something nobler than a mob heading to Stupidville,” as the Straight hoped.
Many of tonight’s rioters were toddlers during the previous riot, so they cannot possibly be blamed for both. Although each fanatic must face their own responsibility for being swept up in the tide of jingoism, the system that produces Canuck fanatics goes back decades. It is important to analyze this system of fanatic production, in order that “something nobler” emerge one day.
First it is impossible to have fanatics without spectacle. Tonight, we had two spectacles: the spectacle of the Canucks, then the spectacle of the Rioters. Disappointed fanatics, unable to control the outcome of the hockey game, created a spectacle of their own. Meanwhile, sitting at home, you could consume representations of both, without having power over either.
It is often claimed that fanatics turn to hooliganism to compensate feelings of powerless when their team loses, and express their powerlessness through violence. There is truth to this, but there is more: they overcome their powerlessness through spectacle.
It helps to recall that our late-capitalist society is a “society of the spectacle,” where social life is increasingly mediated through representations – corporate media and advertising. We acquire collective experience, and even collective purpose, by gazing at these representations. And in Vancouver, the gaze has been professionally focused on ‘our boys’ fighting the enemy – the Boston Bruins.
In the lead up to tonight’s Stanley Cup final, the hockey hype was exceptional. It was necessary for a thinking person to ask: of all the things to hype, why hype NHL hockey, which is an exclusively macho and irrationally violent entertainment product? But even to ask the question “why this rather than something else” was a form of unsportsmanlike treason. Indeed, donning Canucks ware – a de facto-compulsory uniform – was not only fashionable and sexy, but an act of obedience to the State.
Even worse than going without uniform was to analyze the social meaning of the Vancouver’s hysterical hockey hype. Indeed, analysis became just another form of spoil-sport, and it certainly didn’t sell newspapers.
There was much talk of the “energy” in the city, but little public acknowledgement of its character. The energy was measured in units of sold merchandise. And though high policing costs were anticipated given the precedent of 1994, politicians proclaimed that the profits to be made from sales of alcohol and trinkets outweighed the costs of drunkenness and insatiable consumerism.
Fanatics’ energy was indeed directed toward consumption of capitalist trinkets (though it turns out many preferred to procure them for free). And throughout the last week, consumption of alcohol increased along with bar brawls, street fights, and sexual harassment.
But above all, the energy was jingoistic. Contrary to claims that hockey hype is non-political or post-political, the energy was a collective expression of politics, uncontaminated by principles of justice, equality, or even rationality.
As Carl Schmitt notes: “The specific political distinction is that between friend and enemy….The political enemy need not be morally evil or aesthetically ugly; he need not appear as an economic competitor, and it may even be advantageous to engage with him in business transactions. But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger” or, Schmitt might add, a Bruins fan.
“The enemy is not merely any competitor or just any partner in conflict in general…An enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity.”
In the absence of any shared collective progressive principles, the BC elite longed for a new solidarity forged from of this “fighting collectivity” of Canucks fans. You could not find a politician that didn’t reinforce the jingoism, not the least with Premier Christy Clark speaking exclusively in hockey metaphors.
But grounding social solidarity in competitive spectacle is a risky wager, as the solidarity can be wiped away by a 0-4 tally. Spectacle is by its nature passive, the spectator powerless (without opportunity to attack the opposing “fighting collectivity”). The latent purely political violence cannot be directed at the enemy, and so Vancouver’s “fighting collectivity” turned on itself, individuals beating each other up on the streets (in place of the Bruin fans), attacking police (in place of Boston police), and looting Vancouver stores (in place of Boston stores). And so Vancouver had its war: it conquered itself.
Our “leaders” had reveled as young men and women over-consumed alcohol and representations of violence. And now those same leaders feign surprise, shame, and disgust as the cycle of consumption and powerlessness draws to its logical conclusion in tonight’s auto-conquest. Many sitting at home, their gazes fixed on the spectacle, do not like what they see reflected back at them. In denial, they construct mythologies, pretending that the rioters are exogenous, and few in number. The simple truth is that we all saw this coming. The reality is that the rioters were Vancouverites, and the spectacle they created accurately represented the values of a hedonistic Lotus Land, unchanged since 1994.
David Beattie
June 16, 2011 at 1:33 am
Brilliant Tristan, outstanding – will share far and wide. Methinks it will be lost on many, but we live in hope.
Roshak
June 16, 2011 at 2:23 am
Well written but it is incorrect to label the rioters as “disappointed Canucks fans.” Those who rioted were there simply to riot, the hockey game was of minor importance to them.
Craig
June 16, 2011 at 7:37 am
When Debord wrote that 44 years ago, Tristan, images were nothing to what they are today in terms of pervasiveness and insidiousness –no longer can they just be called images. The “spectacle” you’re referring to has won, and it won a long time ago. While your smug analysis suggests this was inevitable and that we are all responsible somehow for being “passive”, show me something that collects people better than a “safe” outlet like watching hockey. Show me something that guides passions better toward a good cause.
Tristan Markle
June 16, 2011 at 8:30 am
@ Roshak: that may be, but that then begs the question: what were the values and emotions underlying the riot? And why did they appear so relieved and satisfied with their looting? What emptiness was being filled?
@Craig: Thank you for your comments. I’m sorry you feel the analysis came across as smug, or self-satisfied. My motivation for writing was a need to respond to smug politicians who were pretending that they didn’t see this coming, and that the rioters were not hockey fans (they were). And an honest attempt to understand the unconscious motivations of the rioters.
Nor do I think any of this was inevitable. It was thoroughly unnecessary, and only collective denial about the implications of jingoism, chauvinism, and consumerism made it possible.
We shouldn’t shy away from asking tough questions out of fear or criticizing “hockey.” I actually think people should play more (non-violent, co-ed) hockey; but that corporate macho sports shouldn’t be used for the purposes of mass politics. And whether consuming the spectacle of corporate macho hockey is “safe”, whether it is an outlet, or a productive experience that builds chauvinism – that is what is in question.
Wrt debord, 44 years ago, the structure of passivity was there, especially with television (you could argue that interactive technologies have attempted to chip away at that passivity).
Sandwichman
June 16, 2011 at 9:10 am
This strikes me as the left-wing version of Don Cherry’s “it’s all the fault of the left-wing pinkos” rant on CBC. There’s too much instant punditry about it to handle the immense amount of contingency that is contained in any event. Yes, it’s all true about the spectacle and the trinkets and the passivity but it is not sufficient.
I’m guessing many of your readers are not going to know who Carl Schmitt was. Given the present tense of the verb with which you introduce his quote, they might mistake him for hockey player or play-by-play announcer.
I think one has to be aware of the extent to which “analysis” and “critique” is likewise spectacle.
Sandwichman
June 16, 2011 at 9:11 am
ARE likewise spectacle…
Jesse
June 16, 2011 at 9:45 am
Hey Tristan. Great article. I think you have some really good points about hype and the very act of spectacle. I’m not sure that the riot was in direct response to losing though. People came prepared with markers for making riot signs and ingredients for molotov cocktails. I think the fans could have gone the rioting way through elation as well as defeat. They don’t have to have lost to get a rush from gaining “power” by attacking police and breaking consumer storefronts. In fact they could also work of the notion of trying to gain further power but rioting even after a win. The entire message of the playoffs were to consume. Buy more, drink more. Go big or go home. And the riots were an extension of that.
non sequitor
June 16, 2011 at 10:23 am
@Jesse : Consumer impetus consuming itself, people are buying in and trying to sell out the supplier, pushing back at the pusher. Our oppression is not complete, so we have the strength for acting out, yet not the where-with-all to effectively resist.
Glen
June 16, 2011 at 11:05 am
thanks for pointing to the complicity of our “leaders”….
RECIPE FOR DISASTER: (Turn on the TV or radio to cook this one -perhaps a soothing station like the CBC) Makes one pot of steaming hot hallucinatory intensity: Tastes best on a Full Moon, Lunar eclipse, on Buddha’s birthday:
To begin: Into a base of alcohol, add a pinch of forgetful gung-ho city leaders, cheap explosives, stir in 75,000 people behind metal fencing, 300 village idiots setting down rhizomes in the fanzone, 2,000 wanna-be idiots on the fence ready to jump, a few too few cops, and hundreds of cameras to perform for. Cook for only 30 seconds after the TV show is over. For extra spicey, add 300 gallons of unpasteurized testosterone: and PRESTO!
Feeds millions but leaves a bad-taste in the mouths of several hundred insurance companies and confused politicians. After the froth rises to the surface, you may notice a deep spiritual crisis is revealed. Scoop it off, along with all the other consumer mass spectacles that fail to fill the void of communion and self-surrender left by (badly) organized religion.
Then have a cigar and consider: a hundred thousand anxious peasants rarely burned the churches when the wine went to vinegar and only occasionally did they attack those on the gravy train when the grain ran out. They were probably too powerless, poor, and fearful. 600 years and perpetual media have emboldened the man on the street, but he is still powerless.
St. Anthony’s Fire? No. this time it’s merely the second coming of the beast within. Perhaps the 1 billion in Olympics security should have been put towards saving these lost souls instead.
Kim
June 16, 2011 at 11:18 am
Well said. Brilliant article.
iang
June 16, 2011 at 12:13 pm
As Vancouver strives to become a world class city it has to be prepared for the pros and cons of doing so. Please name me one large city that has never had a riot – they go hand in hand. Is it also a coincidence that two cities that recently hosted the Olympics had a riot yesterday ?
peanutflower
June 16, 2011 at 12:32 pm
It’s an okay article. I find it hard to rationalize that the riot is the fault of the hockey game or its fans. I would instead be inclined to believe the photos and comments of eye witnesses including VPD who said that there were individuals present who clearly had an agenda as they had masks and bandanas on — gee, doesn’t that sound like the folks who threatened a violent protest in February? In this case inciting a riot was pretty easy for them — they just had to get one fire started and then it was away to the races, what with 50 or so thousand drunk 20-somethings hanging around.
ajc
June 16, 2011 at 12:51 pm
No one has mentioned the effect of alcholol – drunkenness. Most of those idiots jumping on cars, harrassing police, fighting were young men who had been drinking all afternoon. That’s not an excuse but an acknowledgement of how many drunk 20-something men behave – they were doing it when I was 20 and still are.
The other unfortunate part is that all the crowds, being disappointed about the loss, hung around to watch, which just gave these hooligans more impetus to keep acting like crazy idiots – they were loving the attention.
Add to that a few nasty characters with the intent to start something and you have chaos. Perhaps next time, the hockey fans can realize the best action is to ignore the ignoramuses and walk away. Dont’ ‘fuel the fire’ by standing around watching and taking pictures.
Jordan
June 16, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Something interesting you bring up is the fact that most of the rioters this time around were too young to have anything to do with the ’94 riots. I think there might have been some form of ‘riot nostalgia’ in place. These young angry men were told stories of riots; stories that skim over the property damage and deal with the pure aggression on display. This hockey game then became a place for these ‘hooligans’ to have a riot of their own. I believe the media’s constant reminder of the 94 riots only exacerbated this riot nostalgia. The now famous riot 2011 sign that is shown in quite a few pictures sums up this idea. That it’s a riot for our generation.
Adam
June 16, 2011 at 2:02 pm
“Indeed, donning Canucks ware – a de facto-compulsory uniform – was not only fashionable and sexy, but an act of obedience to the State.”
That is the most obnoxiously self-righteous statement that I’ve read in a good long while. Stay classy!
Stuart
June 16, 2011 at 2:11 pm
To those who say the people rioting were not canucks fans. How many pictures do you need to see on the internet or on TV of people wearing Vancouver Canucks jerseys overturning cars, punching people in the face and smashing windows before you come to terms with the fact that a large percentage of the rioters were in fact canucks fans? You comment as if you were in the thick of it taking demographic statistics of the rioters. The pictures speak for themselves. Let me guess, people were saying the exact same thing in 1994?
Habrawk
June 16, 2011 at 3:29 pm
While I agree with Craig, I think its important to underline that despite the spectacle having won a long time ago it won because of have become tickled pink with being the voyeur of the spectacle and hense the passive do nothing effect. which of course the establishment is quite happy with us assuming the position (sic). Get active! be apart of something with others, unplug the cable out of your head and join a Community Charity Drive, Co-operative Gardening, Run or Bike a Marathon, welcome a new immigrant to the country and share with them. The first things that come to mind.
Sharon Priest-Nagata
June 16, 2011 at 3:39 pm
I think that deep down, we all knew there would be a riot, win or lose. The city was prepared; the police knew they could probably contain it. I don’t know the extent of personal injuries, but probably fewer than those of the NHL players over the season. We’re not officially at war with anyone, so we have time, money and energy for hockey. We hire mercenaries to play for the home team and feel entitled to abuse them when they don’t perform as expected. Yesterday’s riot was collateral damage; everyone has insurance and the losses were more than offset by profits gleaned from this hockey season.
Joseph Jones
June 16, 2011 at 3:44 pm
I came across this in after-lunch reading. It jumped off the page:
In the world into which we are entering, a time of mass accumulation and mass rule, the utilization of everything, of crushing misery and banal happiness, it will again be the task of the individual to philosophically seek his truth. No objectivity will teach it to him.
Karl Jaspers writing about Max Weber in 1932. His 1958 preface says this: “At the time of its first publication, amid the onset of National Socialism, it [this work] was supposed to be a reminder of the truth possible in Germany.”
Chris
June 16, 2011 at 4:25 pm
I don’t think using the term Vancouverite is appropriate. I don’t see how those that live in the vacinity are labeled as the ultimate culprits. I’m sure many of the riotards were from elsewhere. I’ve got to give massive thanks to the Vancouverites and others who are helping cleaning up.
Jimmy
June 16, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Tristan – I think you’ve made a few great points, but you seem to have over-thought the issue. People who say those weren’t hockey fans rioting aren’t saying something about the fans, per se, but about the role of hockey. Think back to the fireworks violence in the past (http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20030811/vancouver_fireworks_arrests_030810/). Do you think that the violence was a result of fireworks “hysteria” and the city pushing a conformist capitalist fireworks agenda that literally and figuratively “blew up in their face”? That would be facile and incorrect. Similarly, it would be facile and incorrect to suggest that much of this had anything to do with hockey, the city’s civic pride event, or some imagined jingoistic relationship between the rioters and an absent “other”.
The sad fact is, although we like to think that Vancouver is so progressive, the city and it’s surrounding communities are home to a lot of people who enjoy fucking shit up. Some of those people are political anarchists, and some of them are under-educated “meatheads”. In either case, they use the cover of large anonymous events to wreak their havoc. And once they start going, people who are young or drunk (or both) get the courage to “join in the fun”.
The fact that it happened at a Canucks event is largely immaterial. It could have happened at any large anonymous event, and this happened to be the largest and most anonymous.
My impression after reading your article, is that you already have a negative impression of corporate hockey, and that the riots allow you to make a damning argument of its role in Vancouver’s culture. In my opinion though, this city has little common culture and few things to celebrate (unlike cities like San Francisco, New Orleans, New York, etc). So when we get an opportunity to share in some civic pride, we all flock to it. That’s why other cities claim that this isn’t a “real” hockey city – people just bandwagon because they love Vancouver, and this is one of the few ways to show it. We don’t buy jerseys and have game-watching parties because they are a “uniforms” or state-mandated. We just like an easy and fun way to be “Vancouverites” together.
So please, try to separate your personal issues with hockey or politics from the broader feeling of civic pride we were trying to have. The events last night were hijacked – bad people seized a good opportunity. They did not represent what we were collectively trying to achieve. And in fact, it robbed us of one of the few things we could share together happily.
tf
June 16, 2011 at 4:51 pm
I think your reply proves the point.
Why did the City tolerate a corporate logo jersey on a public statue? I didn’t think it was acceptable to put a Canucks jersey on the statues of the bridge. To me, that was vandalism of public property but the City encouraged it.
The Canucks logo represents a private corporation, not a public asset, but the City “banned” workers from showing any other logo.
If you didn’t support the “team” you were an enemy of the “state”.
I agree with the point of view of the article – you can’t build community by using a competitive private corporate moneymaker. You only get winners and losers, not community.
And we are all the losers here.
Jennifer
June 16, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Very well said and much more accurate than the article. I spent a bit of time down there and as a Canuck’s fan I can tell you with complete certainty that the riot had nothing to do with the loss of the cup. That was just an excuse.
Jennifer
June 16, 2011 at 6:34 pm
i don’t think many people are denying that the people were involved were Canucks fans but to be honest, I haven’t met anyone for the last three months who wasn’t an avowed Canucks fan. What I noted was that the loss of the game had little to nothing to do with the riot. The riot was about sad, drunk people trying to gain the spotlight for a few pathetic moments of infamy. Saddest part of all this is if people lose their love of a game or their belief that Vancouverites are adults who can congregate and have fun together.
Jennifer
June 16, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Oh well said!
Katie
June 16, 2011 at 6:59 pm
The photo you’ve chosen to illustrate implies that a Vancouver supporter brutalized a Boston fan when the video that photo is cropped from shows back and forth between this man and Vancouver fans. He goads fans to go with him and he throws a punch prior to being punched himself. No one should be on the ground, but this particular photo is inflammatory, kind of like the hockey hype you speak of.
Jasper
June 16, 2011 at 7:52 pm
VERY WELL SAID. i’m glad some one has a brain.
Steve McClure
June 16, 2011 at 9:48 pm
During the broadcast of Game 7 (which I was watching on an “unauthorized” streaming website from my home in Tokyo), there was an NHL promo spot featuring a player whose name and team I forget. His subject was fighting, which he claimed is part of the culture of the game. “You gotta stick up for your friends,” he said, or words to that effect. When an organization tolerates and indeed encourages mindless violence and thuggery, should we be surprised when a bunch of bozos go wild in the streets when their team loses? As a native Vancouverite, I am shamed and saddened by this idiocy.
“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”– Hosea 8:7
Kamala
June 16, 2011 at 10:44 pm
I agree–it’s not like the drunk jerks are somehow on the fringe. They are the crowds who partied and got caught up in the massively-promoted frenzy and hype. I wrote a chapter on the 1994 Riot for my Masters thesis. I echoed much of what you wrote here–the spectacle, the mythologies, etc.
You can open the pdf and look for the chapter on the Robson Street riot.
https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/9125
Thanks for your intelligent review!
Sean Antrim
June 16, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Wow thanks! This looks amazing!
R Fabbro
June 17, 2011 at 12:08 am
Thoughtful. I agree. Tristan’s argument seems colored by a political lense informed by over-analysed popular psychology. Your point about finding a rallying point for civic pride, I suspect is much more accurate.
Benny
June 17, 2011 at 1:30 am
Craig are you kidding me? Something that guides passions better toward a good cause… than watching hockey? Really!? It’s called using your imagination and not being a spectator. Try this: design your own sport & invite your friends to play. Then you’ll begin to understand what Debord was about. The spectacle only wins when you give in.
Glen
June 17, 2011 at 2:55 am
Some great discussion here…. striving for more than the obvious analysis.
You’re right, this has nothing to do with the Canucks, except that they provided the appropriate trigger or excuse to vent testosterone. To be fair to the writer, for those who are niggling over his details or your own love of hockey (-nothing wrong with that), it is blind obedience, not strictly to the state but to the disembodied Corporation (substitute: “Professional Hockey Spectacle”), which destabilizes us as individuals and groups. The state at least is deluded enough to think it has the public good in mind (whether or not that is the case). The corporate entity has no such self-deceptive mechanism for an excuse. Its when public consensus, boostered by city/state and corporate sponsorship become glued to the collective and individual egos’ need for expression within the society of the spectacle, that the already shakey social order becomes unhinged at the soonest opportunity. Whether the grand spectacle is spectator sports, the fireworks or a riot, the equation breeds the same results: loss of awareness and self-responsibility. All participating parties are complicit. I acknowledge this is only one interpretation, but bear with me.
Thus these hockey hooligan youth aren’t mere thugs. That’s too simplistic, (and morally smug), though our disgust is justified because they violated the social order while simultaneously and insidiously revealing it. Perversely, they are actually bottom-feeding leading edge agents of the state-sponsored colonial-corporate religion we all submit to on a daily basis. On this other level they are victims too, victims of a society which conveniently subjugates by implicitly discouraging self-development and discernment over surrender to falsely collectivist memes that sublimate the now-abandoned offerings of religion. In the absence of a meaningful social ritual, and the right conditions (see RECIPE above), the desire for the fire of transformation, performative self-exprression short-circuits to the basest and most destructive forms of ego-satisfaction.
Tribal societies, and later the Abrahamic religions, were partly founded on the collectively-modeled behaviour of social reinforcement by the sacrifice/scapegoating (animal→ human → martyr) of an-“other”. In the absence of such a social order (the “Lord of the Flies” scenario of yesterday), the rioters quickly defaulted to wanton destruction of public and private property as a stand-in for a socially-legitimatized target like a goat, to blame for their lack of connection to a greater whole. It provided temporary achievement for the ego, but little more. For their part, the passive riot spectators while aspiring to witness and project their own moral superiority, get caught in a descending moral vacuum, they just get subsumed into a new, seductively escalating level of the greater Spectacle, and so watch mutely, feigning aloofness, as the looting gorilla armies simultaneously confirm their own baser desires vicariously and affirm their moral superiority. So every one is doing their job correctly, even the police -all upholding the over-arching moral disorder as it has been handed down to us by the disembodied underlord of Ignorance, which this society worships by default, lacking a cohesive collective conscience. (Why else would we need police?) The marauders are therefore representative stand-ins for the civic Unconscious. The veneer of a social order is actually quite thin here in Vancouver, as we are a young and relatively rootless city without the sometimes useful baggage of generations of tradition and tribal self-regulation. This same youthfulness also allows for some of our more positive unregulated achievements. But generally the wild west paradigm rules. Its still a place for the taking and unchecked ego and testosterone is good at taking. (Anyone for a shitty million dollar concrete shack on unceded Coal Harbour).
To paraphrase John Gray, from 17 years ago: Many North American cities are like donuts -empty hole in the centre. What is different about Vancouver, and what explains the nature of the Vancouver [1994] Stanley Cup riot, is that Vancouver’s donut has jelly in the middle.” I think he means its still empty, but it looks deceptively sweet much of the time.
I think a lot of you are missing the main point of the article, that the very blinding nature of this corporate hockey/sports spectacle thing is that is quite potentially a distraction on the scale of organized religion (another, earlier corporate monopoly of our minds). It creates a totalizing language that has been adopted uncritically by the elites because, in spite of their institutional privilege, these elites are still made up of individuals caught in a spell-binding spectacle. The only spellbinding spectacle that can be healthy is the one in which your ego is subsumed in surrender to a higher order of consciousness, not a culturally-fabricated one. You can’t see it from the inside so to defend your own hockey fandom (short for fanatic) as a pretext for dismissing the salient points above betrays your inability to grok the enormity of the illusion we are invested in.
The situation is systemic, ie. its part of a much bigger societal phenomenon where individual agency is sacrificed in exchange for feelings of communal redemption and self-transcendence. That is why IT is so successful at colonizing our minds –IT, the “spectacle” (spectre- or ghost) mirages itself in our own cultural self-image. And in the absence of any other more meaningful examples of established mystical initiation with the Divine, it becomes a dull but functional surrogate for that image of the Divine Other. Violence is the most likely outcome when the moon is right and the guards are down. There is obviously an inner need for fire and celebration. That is why exploding cars and fireworks are so seductive.
A zealot in any team uniform or fairy costume for that matter is still a zealot. A zealot or in this case a zealot-without-a-cause, the “generic” rioteer, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spectacle, the corporately-sponsored receptacle for all the lost or at least unevolved self-identities of any individuals caught up, even momentarily, in It. To one degree or another, we are all victims of this giant attention-sucking machine for it skillfully masquerades as Reality. The idiocracy is alive within us so we must be aware. The degree to which we capitulate entirely to Its tauntings determines our self awareness in that moment. That is to say, show me the man utterly detached from the Big Game and I will show you a Buddha.
Of course, there’s a lot more to this than hockey, ego transcendence and city sponsorship of consumer spectacles but the very fact that the city will sponsor a corporate spectacle like professional hockey as opposed to say, putting money into more “wholesome” community festivals is very revealing -that in spite of their ostensibly enlightened and progressive stance, they still cater to the lowest common demonator (the “beast within”). Community street festivals still have to take out permits and pay for lost parking meter revenue while here in corporate canuckistan, the millionaires get a free ride. Sports spectacles (which pay taxes but not much more) are one of the most convenient ways for the powers that be to uphold this paradigm of mental slavery because unlike mere television, they provide the spectacular shadow surrogate to the harnessing of genuine community energy necessary for mutual evolution. But its an endgame.
I didn’t want to make this longer than the original article, so my apologies, but thanks for bearing with me. This is tricky terrain, for it deals with the very core distresses of what it means to be a human in a society of competing egos with multiple messages competing for our minds and, er…souls.
Bob
June 17, 2011 at 9:42 am
I wish people would stop trying to excuse the hockey fans.
It is crystal clear from the public images and from the subsequent shaming sites that the vast majority were Canucks fans. The Chinese cadet kid from Richmond, the Caucasian water polo star from Maple Ridge, the drunk girl boasting about her looted Clinique mosurizer on CBC. These aren’t professional anarchists folks. For whatever reason or agenda Mayor Robertson and Chief Chu are trying to pin this on some sinister anarchist group, when in reality they may have played a small part, but it was good old Canucks fans who kept things rolling.
So why aren’t the Aquilinis stepping up and even coming out with a meaningful statement?
Glissando Remmy
June 17, 2011 at 10:17 am
The Thought of The Day
‘“STUPID + VANCOUVER = STUPIDER”
Therefore I, Glissando Remmy, say to you all:
“ICH BIN EIN STUPIDER”
underlying my support to the stupid of Vancouver!
Tristan,
Very well said. Polite, though, too polite, IMHO.
The reality, the way I see it, is like this:
Vancouver has become a city of extremes, super rich vs. super poor, with politicians in between trying to equate the two. Hockey was the triple shot of aphrodisiac administered. Remember, this city elected a rather average MLA quitter (he cost us money in a Fairview by-election as well) as Mayor on a platform of fairy tales. Recently, Vancouver Point Grey gave Christy Clark her seat in Victoria despite controversies that would have made other politicians resign in disgrace…not in this Vancouver.
What do you think. Aquilini didn’t know it might get rough, considering? What about, Ballem, Robertson, Chu?
Let me recap for you… here’s the timeline of some city politicians.
Reimer goes to New York to discus …bike lanes. Stanley Cup playoffs are on.
The Magnificent Seven go to Halifax for Lobster and to discuss…homelessness. Stanley Cup playoffs are on.
No.1 and No. 2… Penny and Aufochs are counting their per diem… in Vancouver, as they both are …accidental tourists. Stanley Cup playoffs are on.
VISION brethren is canonizing Gregor, with their ‘Robertson Brand’ in a 97% adulation vote. (the lookout for the handful of dissenters is on!) Stanley Cup playoffs are on.
NOBODY PAYS ATTENTION.
THE MONKEY IS OUT OF THE CAGE.
NOBODY CARES.
Then, this whole thing turnes into a riot…who knew, eh? :-)
We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.
don m
June 17, 2011 at 10:34 am
…..CURIOUS…..
So in reading your opinion article, many specific references are made without proof.
“Disappointed fanatics, unable to control the outcome of the hockey game, created a spectacle of their own.” While some fans were involved- so were several persons there to start a riot regardless of outcome.
“There was much talk of the “energy” in the city, but little public acknowledgement of its character. The energy was measured in units of sold merchandise.” The energy was in the city AND across the Lower Mainland (and all of BC). No riot in Surrey. None in Abbottsford. Nothing in Chilliwack, Maple Ridge, Kamloops or Kelowna that I heard of…so? Did all those people/fans add to the sold merchandise to belong downtown? Or was a choice made to get behind a unifying force- a team that all of BC could get behind and so that BC could unify under the “fan(atic)” label? A bit of a Social study in itself.
As for the violence- It Is HORRENDOUS that the rioters believed it was OK to start throwing bottles and cans at the screen (and into the crowds) before the game ended and while families and true fans were still around.
THE CITY.
The City Offered a free event for Vancouverites- which, let’s face it, was attended by residents of Vancouver, Surrey, New West, Richmond, Calgary etc.
The City could’ve done much more. They DID close liquor stores early. They DID have police dispersed in the crowd. What else could’ve been done? Checking everyone coming out of the SKY Trains… Fencing the Fan Zone Area and patrolling the outside… Ticketing the Fan Zone seats… Arresting those acting our early and convincingly may have helped too.
I do NOT defend the rioters and looters. But I do NOT blame the fans. The fans in the building cheered Tim Thomas, Mark Recchi, Milan Lucic and most of the Bruins Team- that is Vancouver Fan base- albeit the monied crowd. I blame the fuse- those who started the violence: The Kid in the old Canucks Jersey who lit the first car. The bearded guy who threatened the police with a weapon (and was not arrested). The guy who lit the Police car up like a molotov cocktail. Not the CANUCKS. Not the NHL. Not the Police (who followed direction to not engage the “protesters”).
Nadine Lumley
June 17, 2011 at 10:55 am
Re 2011 Van riots: Bob Whitelaw, independent investigator of the 1994 Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver is incredulous his exhaustive recommendations and warnings were ignored by Vancouver Police Dept.
http://youtu.be/MFeGUZpeC0E
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“Once the incidents began to start, the police, in my opinion, many of them just stood to the side waiting for the next order.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/06/16/bc-vancouver-riot-whitelaw-1994-report.html
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One month before the Van. 2011 riots, Bob Whitelaw told The Sun in an interview he was concerned about a repeat of the 1994 riot.
http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/2011+Stanley+riot+worse+than+1994/4959547/story.html#ixzz1PX6WHisq
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In other words, POLICE expectations of a uniformly violent group acted as a self-fulfilling prophecy because of the effect of their subsequent strategy and tactics on fans’ social identity.
http://www.liv.ac.uk/Psychology/cpd/Stott,_C.J.,_Adang,_O.M.,_Livingstone,_A.,_%26_Schreiber,_M._(.pdf
This link may not hot link so copy and paste it instead:
TACKLING FOOTBALL HOOLIGANISM
A Quantitative Study of Public Order, Policing and Crowd Psychology
Additionally, in the attempts to control incidents of football crowd disorder, laws have been created that arguably undermine fundamental civil liberties and human rights.
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The wrong questions will inevitably get asked in the wake of all this, and the wrong solutions applied.
Expect “tougher policing”, and a ramped up culture of intolerance in a city that already turns a blind-eye to a tsunami of social ills.
http://www.straight.com/article-399635/vancouver/vancouver-hockey-riot-symptom-larger-problem#comments_here
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An investigator who examined the 1994 riots in Vancouver says key recommendations went unheeded by local police. Bob Whitelaw told CTV News that many of the 100 recommendations he helped draft were blatantly disregarded.
Those suggestions include a no-parking zone in the downtown core, something that could have prevented frustrated people from taking their aggression out on parked cars. Whitelaw also recommended that fans should have been quickly dispersed and reminded they have to get out of the downtown zone.
“The police, in many ways, as they did in ’94, seemed to be standing around, not taking any pro-action,” he said.
http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110616/bc_police_fire_riot_update_110616/20110616/?hub=BritishColumbiaHome
Nadine Lumley
June 17, 2011 at 10:57 am
As we all know there are several questions that need to be answered.
1) What was the budget for policing for the Game 7?
2) Why were police not checking Skytrain riders as they got off the trains for booze, weapons and other contraband (see Fireworks for details)
3) Why did it take hours to call for reinforcements from outside police forces?
4) Why were off duty officers NOT called in as reinforcements BEFORE the event?
5) Why were the fences and access points opened to allow even more people into the area?
6) Why did it take so long to respond to the violence and looting on Granville Street?
7) Where were the Skytrain/Transit Police during the day when open drinking onboard the trains by many was taking place?
8) Why was the Bearcat APC – VPD Riot Vehicle not ready to be deployed and/or used?
9) Why was there no initial support for the VFRS to get their vehicles in to put the fires out?
10) Why was the ERT team seemingly overwhelmed in 2 different locations?
11) Finally…… WHO planned this mess and what was the rationale for cheaping out?
Just a few questions that NEED to be answered?
Perhaps Hizzoner and Ms. Ballem would like to step up and answer some of these questions in a credible manner!
http://www.citycaucus.com/2011/06/why-werent-we-better-prepared-for-the-stanley-cup-riot
Linx
June 17, 2011 at 11:41 am
…the way i look at it it’s, All Good!!! We need to get Mad, have Mad Dialog, Mad Talk, and communicate Madly… even if it’s Hockey. There is so many great points made by everyone here, i just know, in this here Babylon times we can’t sleep, or become like robots. Big up Tristan and many like him!! For when the man say things like “Hedonistic” i agree! Its well-entrenched and we all need (even iandi) to see it for what it is… Unfortunately this time we didn’t, but we learned something… We live inside a box and our youth are counting on us, our wisdom, and guidance, outside of the box. There focus is being manipulated now in HD, 3D, XviD… So i say, Big up yourself Can-Nuckel Heads! Bless up your city and the indigenous spirit that guides us. Give thx & Forward! ….You Done Know!
Alex
June 17, 2011 at 2:12 pm
“…why hype NHL hockey, which is an exclusively macho and irrationally violent entertainment product?”
I agree with many of your points, Tristan, but it is too easy to dismiss hockey in this way. I grew up in a family full of hockey fans and it has been a long tradition to watch the games together.
It is naive to assume that it has been unfashionable to analyze this violence in hockey, and the fanaticism it might insight. Sports commentators are very aware of these issues and do not dismiss them, despite not having a similar vocabulary with which to discuss them. Some of the most intense debates among the NHL, players, and fans have been in regards to this violence, with the hopes of maintaining a high contact, fast-paced game with a strong physical presence. In other words, it is offensive to hear hockey fans being discussed as pawns in some corporate game that they don’t understand.
In light of Schmitt’s friend/enemy analysis, I would argue that sport within society needs to be reconsidered and not just dismissed as a corporate spectacle for the unenlightened masses.
Barb
June 17, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Agreed!
Bob
June 17, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Alex, perhaps our mayor should have done as the mayor of Boston did: encourage families to gather in their homes to watch the game together. Not to descend en masse downtown.
Glen
June 17, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Amen
Sean Antrim
June 18, 2011 at 2:33 am
I’ve been having this debate so much lately. Still undecided. You should come to un-spectacle hockey with us in the park some day.
page turner
June 18, 2011 at 8:34 am
Incredibly articulate and well reasoned response! As is the original article that prompted it. Again and again, “THEY” were not fans. How dare anyone assume, deny and bear false witness to keep their “fan”tasy alive!
Autumn
June 18, 2011 at 1:26 pm
I love the No True Scotsman arguments being leveled at the rioters. They weren’t from the urban core, said urbanites. They weren’t real Canucks fans, said self-described real Canucks fans. They were from out of town, said the suburbanites. Like it’s *that* hard for anyone to admit we share our lives and homes and perhaps our own psyches with the deranged cavemen we saw on Wednesday.
The riot put a hole in our civilized facade — a hole that the whole world saw on Wednesday but which so many Vancouverites refuse to admit exists. I suppose too many people have property values and tourist dollars on the line. Well, now Vancouver is the anal stain of Canada, as Twitter put it. And we totally earned it.
“I would argue that sport within society needs to be reconsidered and not just dismissed as a corporate spectacle for the unenlightened masses.”
No offense intended, but there’s a whiff of denial in statements like this that parallels the denial we’ve been seeing in all the media lately. What are pro sports, if not corporate spectacle for a mass audience? I will leave enlightenment out of it, as I can only assume that all of us, latent cavemen, are equally unenlightened.
joethorntonitcouldbe
June 18, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Why would another human being display such a terrible and meaningless display of violence against another person. I lie here tonight with less than the ablity to breath, I have a terminal disease that within the next few days I shall be in a place of such peace that this to me seems nothing. However, for years hockey was my life, I lived in an arena, I travelled the NHL circuit, I even won my share of awards. This is something I never thought I would see again in my life. I was wrong. Please don’t let it happen again. To those that know me, thank you for the wonderful years, to my fans, thanks for always cheering, and to those that come now and help me, your great. I leave you with this. Hockey is the greatest game on ice but it is the fans that make it worth it all. Don’t let these few ruin it for the rest of you. The pain of this is greater than what I feel tonight. I am alone now but soon, I will be with many of those that I love. :)
Richard
June 18, 2011 at 11:19 pm
I agree, Roshak
hoopz
June 18, 2011 at 11:39 pm
With all the talk about alcohol, I hope people realize the answer isn’t more prohibition, but more education and awareness. If Vancouver really “is better than this”, then it needs to stop glorifying hangovers, doing shots and passing out drunk. Not make bars close earlier or raise the cost of a liquor license.
The solution is to foster a healthy pub culture based on social respect and enjoying each other’s company, rather than selfish consumption.
Richard
June 18, 2011 at 11:48 pm
Just what kind of unsophisticated and raw
cities destroy themselves over sports results ?
In Canada, we have*Montreal* in 2008, after beating the Bruins in game7 of Round 1 of the playoffs. 16 police cars were burned or smashed (as opposed to 2 in Vancouver). A similar riot after a Stanley Cup
victory in 1993 caused major damage.
In*Paris*, on 24 November 2006, a PSG fan was shot and killed by police and another seriously injured during fighting between PSG fansand the police. The violence occurred after PSG lost 4-2 to Israeli
club Hapoel Tel Aviv at the Parc des Prince in a UEFA Cup match. This riot was race-based.
In 2002, Russia lost to Japan in the World Cup, angry football fans tore apart the centre of *Moscow*. Cars burned, shop windows were smashed. Two people were killed. It was the worst football violence ever seen in Russia.
In*London*, in 2008, Chelsea Blues fans rioted venting their frustration minutes after the end of the dramatic Champions League Final match against Manchester United.
Also, in 2008, in *Manchester * there were the 2008 UEFA Cup Final riots, also known as the Battle of Piccadilly. 39 police officers were injured. The sentencing judge Judge Andrew Blake said: “What followed was the worst night of violence and destruction suffered by Manchester city centre since the blitz.” Manchester, fyi, is known positively as
the cultural capital of northern England and on that basis is considering a bid to become designated the “European Cultural Capital” .
There have been 3 soccer riots to date this year alone in Czechoslavakia.
I would hardly categorize Paris and London as “unsophisticated and raw”. Would you ?
So, based on my brief survey, Vancouver certainly IS a “world class” city.
Some of the common elements among all of these riots are young men, alcohol/drugs, tetesterone, some genuine “shit disturber” mentality, and “mob psychology”.
Irene
June 19, 2011 at 7:40 pm
I just want to point out that the guy in the Boston’s jersey laying on the ground was a guy who was pushed down by security guards after he pushed an older gentleman. He wasn’t a victim of the riots or killed or any other such a thing. There is a video/videos of the whole event on youtube.
Heather
June 20, 2011 at 7:40 am
Historian Barbara Tuchman said, “Professional sports teams are the hired armies of the city states.”
Elliot
June 20, 2011 at 6:28 pm
re “show me something that collects people better than a “safe” outlet like watching hockey. Show me something that guides passions better toward a good cause.”
well there’s music and dancing for one…
Atomos
June 22, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Here’s a link to the original 1994 Georgia Straight article, “Stupidville”: http://www.straight.com/article-399837/vancouver/stupidville-emgeorgia-straightem-feature-1994-stanley-cup-riot-vancouver