Luckily for the mayor and his lackies the city of Ottawa won't have to deal with a long cup run and sens mile will be a ghost town for many playoffs to come...
A designated "party area" may work for buttoned-down cities like Ottawa, but the pure joyous life energy contained in the city of Montreal will spread wherever it damn well wants. You can't contain the population of Montreal when it comes to hockey.
In the fall and winter that steam you see coming up from the grates in the street is hockey. In the spring the rains are hockey. In the summer the thick smog that sticks hazy over the island is hockey, dirty black hockey smog polluted from the cars and chimneys, but it's hockey. The hills are hockey, the girls are hockey, the pubs and the Jacques Cartier bridge and the faded paint on the wall in the Snowdon Metro are worn with the friction of hockey, year in and year out, as it courses through the brick and metal and plaster and people.
Is there another thread talking about this riot? I read that Higgins claims it wasn't the Canadiens fans who did it and a couple friends in Montreal told me it was Wu Tang fans.
Doesn't make sense because the Wu show probably started AFTER the hockey game and let out very late (as rap shows often do). And I've read a couple message boards about people who were at the Wu show coming out and seeing cop cars that were already burned.
Couldn't have been the Wu Tang crowd.
Another mystery solved.
I heard the Wu Tang concert ended at like 10:30.
Also, if you look at the pictures of the guys who started the fires...Well, I hate to generalize, but they look like they just came from a Wu Tang concert.
If you mean Elgin street, or whatever there, I highly doubt there were that many people. Max; 1500-1700.
From what I saw on CBC news Montreal, they just say "A riot broke out after a Canadiens game" and every other news stations says habs fans and people from the actual city say a gang, or an organized group of people.
Though, if Montreal was crazy, it would make sense as Vanier is a bad place from what I hear.
Also, if you look at the pictures of the guys who started the fires...Well, I hate to generalize, but they look like they just came from a Wu Tang concert.
No... it ended later, from a freind who went... said both people from the show and the game gathered... anyways, Metropolis not very close to where the incidents started...
Also, if you look at the pictures of the guys who started the fires...Well, I hate to generalize, but they look like they just came from a Wu Tang concert.
I read the guy's description. He came out of the concert and the cars were already burned and the fire put out. That means it wasn't them.
i was in ottawa last spring, before the playoffs started, and about 2-3 weeks after reading a GLobe and Mail article on the overwhelming crack/meth problem in Ottawa (how it's so rampant that addicts can be seen everywhere downtown getting high at all times per day)...
I thought the article was likely exagerating, but when I got there, I could hardly believe my eyes... literally in every other open space in the downtonw core, you could see a group of people ligthing up their crack pipes... and this at 3pm on a thursday, with cars stuck in traffic 5m away.
of course, Ottawa is not the only city with drug problems, and montreal certainly has its share, but for it to be so openly tolerated and on display for everyone to see/access, a little embarassing for a nation's capital imo.
maybe the ottawa police force and mayor's office should spend a little more time worrying about that problem than concentrating on containing their already largely subdued hockey fans...
just a thought!
Ottawa? Ottawa? They roll up the sidestreets at 6 PM, man.
What happened in Montreal was ludicrous. But to take cheap shots at a complete city for it, including the mayor, that coming from small town Ottawa (who has more violent crimes per capita than Montreal), is absolutely low class. But what can you expect from a fraudulent mayor who's got more in common with ex-Taranna mayor Lastman than with Jean Drapeau?
Civic pride and love of your team is one thing but a lot of the posters in this thread should give her heads a shake. We had a mini riot where 5-6 cop cars were burnt and private property was destroyed and we're cooler than other cities.
In a town where they stopped removing snow, where the damn streets are &*^%*(^ obstacle courses and where the bridges and overpasses are hazards, yeah our administration is better than Ottawa's.
The mayor and the cops screwed up and stop making excuses. You're only giving these incompetent boobs more ammunition.
I think the census was that it wasnt fans in Montreal but criminals who used the distraction for some anarchy.
Anyway the Ottawa Sun is trash, like a mini enquirer.
Did anyone read Earl MaCrae arthicle on the 23rd, about how much he hates the OLAY chant.
Actually, this thread is funny, because posters are caring about a newspaper that has the circulation of a small town free weekly (not even 50 000 copies).
I obviously deplore any riot mentality and anyone who feels brave in a mob. I've always talked up Montreal for having a uniqueness and a flavour to it that other cities don't have.
It's changing though. The free spirit mentality that anything goes within reason, is rapidly declining. I'm told by enough young people that there's more of a thug mentality than there used to be. Women going into bars alone or with friends isn't as easy as it was 5-10 years ago. The downtown scene demnads that you keep your head on a swivel more than in the past. That's what I'm told.
I was kind of surprised but, to me, the downtown scene is happy hour, maybe a game and heading home as soon as I'm convinced that .08 isn't an issue. So I don't see 4 suburban tough guys pushing around a homeless guy at 3 AM, you know the type of stories that we read about in other cities [Ottawa included].
All that being said, I find it pretty sad how eager people, posters , fans, columnists alike 'want' to be able to paint Mtl in a bad light. As if poor behaviour somehow vindicates the failures of their sports team. The incidents Monday night, were welcomed by some, a kind of relief.
'Forget about our GM not getting a scorer at the deadline, at least out city is classier. ' It seems therapeutic for fans to be able to assume a moral highground.
Ottawa to Montreal:
What craziness, panic in the streets. I'm not your buddy, fwriend.
Montreal in response to Ottawa:
I'm not your fwriend, guy.
-I don't think Montreal should be so alarmed at Ottawa. It's national news, everyones had stories about these happenings. Most importantly the Ottawa Sun is a tabloid paper where sensationalism wins out. This is the same chain of newspaper that brings us the Sunshine Girl, no?
[QUOTE=airic000;13835563] It's not our fault we actually care about our hockey team!
I don't see how people looting, rampaging drunkenly & burning police cars shows that these people care about the hockey team. These are not hockey fans, they are idiots with little common sense & a total lack of respect for other people's property.
It's not our fault we actually care about our hockey team!
I don't see how people looting, rampaging drunkenly & burning police cars shows that these people care about the hockey team. These are not hockey fans, they are idiots with little common sense & a total lack of respect for other people's property.
You know how we say that, it's not the whole crowd that boos anthems, or it's not hockey fans who grow a set when they can hide in a crowd, well the post you quoted, kind of the same thing. When a post is that silly, it stands alone.
I dont know, maybe its because the more i kept reading this article and the more i saw the Senators name... well, all i could feel was that i had some trouble breathing, it got harder for me to inhale and it felt a lot like i was choking ...
I dont know, maybe its because the more i kept reading this article and the more i saw the Senators name... well, all i could feel was that i had some trouble breathing, it got harder for me to inhale and it felt a lot like i was choking ...
The mind is a powerful thing you know.
Speak for yourself. I stood in front of a coffee machine for 10 minutes on Tuesday wondering how it worked.
My own theory is that I have no idea why the first riots (early 90's, hockey + rock) actually started, but since they have occured other riots will happen because the precedent exists. The first riots must have been spontaneous actions, see crowd psychology for that matter. The mini riot that happend after game 7 wasn't an impulsive act, it happend because a lot kids flooded the DT with the idea that it would... haven't you ever joked about getting a new radio if the Habs won the cup? ... "Le gros, on s'en va se chercher des beaux coats de cuir au screamin' eagle" ...
Once the precedent is set, other occurencies will happen... the thing I liked about the last incident is that a lot of people actually tried to stop the vandals... not sure the reaction would have been the same if we lost the game though.. anyways..
what people don't realize is that a lot of riot were done by a little group of people. In 93, most of the damage was done around Berri... strange.
The Bell center is downtown and not in Boucherville... and we are 3 millions... I'm sure you can find 15 idiots to start a riot...
i was in ottawa last spring, before the playoffs started, and about 2-3 weeks after reading a GLobe and Mail article on the overwhelming crack/meth problem in Ottawa (how it's so rampant that addicts can be seen everywhere downtown getting high at all times per day)...
I thought the article was likely exagerating, but when I got there, I could hardly believe my eyes... literally in every other open space in the downtonw core, you could see a group of people ligthing up their crack pipes... and this at 3pm on a thursday, with cars stuck in traffic 5m away.
of course, Ottawa is not the only city with drug problems, and montreal certainly has its share, but for it to be so openly tolerated and on display for everyone to see/access, a little embarassing for a nation's capital imo.
maybe the ottawa police force and mayor's office should spend a little more time worrying about that problem than concentrating on containing their already largely subdued hockey fans...
just a thought!
MT, cities have problems, lots of 'em. To try and paint a town as worse than another is self serving for the writer usually.
Ottawa is bland and insipid city with zero character (like their hockey franchise) - Montreal is vibrant, energetic and full of hot babes that dress skimpily in the hot Spring/Summer months.
I obviously deplore any riot mentality and anyone who feels brave in a mob. I've always talked up Montreal for having a uniqueness and a flavour to it that other cities don't have.
It's changing though. The free spirit mentality that anything goes within reason, is rapidly declining. I'm told by enough young people that there's more of a thug mentality than there used to be. Women going into bars alone or with friends isn't as easy as it was 5-10 years ago. The downtown scene demnads that you keep your head on a swivel more than in the past. That's what I'm told.
I was kind of surprised but, to me, the downtown scene is happy hour, maybe a game and heading home as soon as I'm convinced that .08 isn't an issue. So I don't see 4 suburban tough guys pushing around a homeless guy at 3 AM, you know the type of stories that we read about in other cities [Ottawa included].
All that being said, I find it pretty sad how eager people, posters , fans, columnists alike 'want' to be able to paint Mtl in a bad light. As if poor behaviour somehow vindicates the failures of their sports team. The incidents Monday night, were welcomed by some, a kind of relief.
'Forget about our GM not getting a scorer at the deadline, at least out city is classier. ' It seems therapeutic for fans to be able to assume a moral highground.
Well said mcphee. It isn't just Boston looking for moral victories.
