Thursday, June 16, 2011

Bruins win the Cup

Windows were broken, cars overturned and burning in the streets, people were injured.

Police tried desperately to control the unruly crowds. Looters had their way taking what they wanted, while other random acts of violence and senselessness filled the air.

Sounds a lot like what happened after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.

This was in Vancouver on Wednesday night, and the reason? Their hockey team lost the Stanley Cup.

In the early stages of the mayhem, I was still at my desk, watching the Cup get passed from one Boston Bruin to the next, and my twitter feed was erupting with news of spreading chaos in Vancouver. It was with stunned amazement, that I checked out Canadian TV websites to see and hear the coverage. Utter insanity.

One of my wonderful followers tweeted to me that the people in the midst of the destruction should "grow up." While true, he led into those two words with something far more profound. "In many countries, they riot about government or for democracy, in North America we riot over sports."

Sad, but true.

From my perspective, the worst part of this story is that the celebration of hockey is pushed to this point in the blog. What a wonderful game 7. Two teams pushing themselves to the limit. One team standing atop the mountain. Hats off to the Bruins for winning their first title since 1972, and to Tim Thomas for winning the Conn Smythe trophy for playoff MVP. He's just the 2nd American born player to do so.

Mark Recchi took the opportunity to retire after 22 NHL seasons, and 3 Stanley Cups with 3 different teams. Young stars like Brad Marchand and Tyler Seguin will have their names on the Cup for 67 years (the amount of time it takes to remove a ring from the trophy). So many positives for the Bruins, it will make it tough for somebody to take it away from them in the coming years.

Hopefully, the team that comes up short won't burn things in the streets afterwards.

Mike Solarte

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