It was a night of exalted highs and tragic lows in Vancouver, British Columbia, as Wednesday night’s deciding Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals went Boston’s way. The Bruins jumped on the Canucks, and brought the excited crowd in the Rogers Centre to stunned silence.
The Bruins won, 4-0, and took the Stanley Cup back to Boston for the first time since 1972. Goalie Tim Thomas won the Conn Smythe trophy for being voted the best player of the playoffs, and was feted by the Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan for his steely calm.
The ESPNBoston.com columnist Jackie MacMullan feels the Bruins used their cohesiveness and teamwork to wear down the Canucks.
“When their season reached its most critical juncture, when those hockey dreams nurtured on the frozen ponds of Flint, Mich., and Trencin, Czechoslovakia, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, and L’Ancienne-Lorette, Quebec, were hanging in the balance, the Boston Bruins flew more than 2,500 miles to an arena jammed with rabid fans hollering for their demise and did what champions do: They delivered. Together,” MacMullan wrote.
The Boston Herald also praised the Bruins for their triumph, with Dan Duggan focusing on the injured wing Nathan Horton’s emotional contributions to the effort.
While the Bruins celebrated the win in Vancouver and their fans safely and sanely partied back in Boston, Canucks fans took to the downtown streets of Vancouver with more menacing intent. More than 150 people were injured as storefronts were destroyed and looted, cars overturned and burned, and fights raged.
The main headline on The Vancouver Sun’s Web site decries, “Canuck hockey dream now Vancouver’s nightmare”.
The news of violence raced around the world, with the British Broadcasting Corp. putting the Vancouver story on its homepage.
An estimated crowd of 70,000 had gathered outside Rogers Arena in the hours leading up to Game 7, wanting to be a part of what they assumed would be a Canucks victory party. The crowd turned angry as the reality of the loss set in.
The crowd inside the arena wasn’t happy either, as somebody launched a cup of cola in the direction of N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman, according to The Vancouver Sun. The flying soda just missed Bettman, coming within four feet, but the hearty boos and catcalls for Bettman hit their intended target.
The Canadian Broadcast Corp.’s postgame coverage switched from chronicling the Bruins to live scenes of cars burning and people breaking into a drugstore and department store. The Province newspaper’s Web site did a live-time chronicling of the unrest, complete with eyewitness accounts and photos.
The scenes of unrest were an unfortunate repeat of 1994, when Canucks fans rioted after a Game 7 loss to the Rangers and caused more than $1 million Canadian in damage to Vancouver.
The Vancouver Sun columnist Sam Cole chided Canucks fans and Vancouverites for their violent reactions and loss of control.
“Flummoxed, frustrated, driven mad by an inability to shoot, run, kick, bulldoze or otherwise squeeze a puck past Boston’s Tim Thomas for most of seven straight games, the Canucks let a dream season go to waste Wednesday night, losing Game 7 and the Stanley Cup on home ice to an infinitely better-organized, stronger Bruins team,” Cole wrote. “And then the whole damned city lost its class.
“Again. Just like 1994. No lesson learned. The Olympics was the exception. Civil disobedience is the rule. It started outside the arena, where the usual thugs and goofballs took their frustrations out on cars and cops and property, though they’d probably have just found a different reason to do it if the Canucks had won…”
While the Canucks players were contemplating a championship opportunity lost, reporters were asking them about the looting and burning happening outside the arena.
“It’s terrible,” Canucks forward Henrik Sedin told The Vancouver Sun, while shaking his head in disbelief. “This city and province has a lot to be proud of, the team we have and the guys we have in here. It’s too bad.”
No comments:
Post a Comment