Shame on rioting Montreal fans TheStar.com - Hockey - Shame on rioting Montreal fans
Chris Zelkovich
April 23, 2008
Dave Perkins
What kind of whacko fan attacks a police car, much less a police officer, after his team wins something?
And what kind of idiot goes wild in the streets after his team wins merely the fourth of 16 victories required for a championship? Surely they can't all be YouTube junkies.
Have they forgotten what a title smells like in Montreal? Are they now as easily impressed as those Maple Leafs fans who invade Yonge St. after a win in a first-round playoff game?
Or are sports fans so simply out of control that a minority believes any and all behaviour, when committed under cover of a crowd, is now acceptable? That explanation gets this vote.
All kinds of questions once again arise from the latest Montreal "hockey riot," albeit one that probably had little to do with hockey itself, in the way that soccer hooliganism hasn't much to do with soccer, other than as a proxy.
Riots in and around sports have been around for a long time and let us limit the conversation to North American sports. From the 1934 Detroit-St. Louis World Series melee through the Pistons-Pacers brawl at Auburn Hills, countless times mayhem that began on the field ended in the stands. Another kind of fan violence, like the Vancouver hockey riots in 1994, followed a crushing defeat. The Canucks fell to the New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup that year and 50,000 fans jammed Robson St., the mood soon turning ugly.
Historically, sports victories have set off the kind of joyous, city-wide parades that followed, say, the Brooklyn Dodgers' 1955 World Series win, or the way Pittsburgh danced all night in 1960 after Bill Mazeroski's home run. Even the Blue Jays' two World Series wins, lo these 16 and 15 years ago, were greeted with restrained enthusiasm across a celebrating city.
But increasingly, it's victories that have set off the fireworks – and fires. Detroit's World Series win in 1984 was remembered for torched police cars and dangerous streets. One of the Lakers' championships was followed by an almost locked-down L.A. Any number of college campuses summoned riot troops to deal with frenzied students after NCAA championships and recall the young woman accidentally shot dead by Boston police during out-of-control celebrations after the Red Sox won the 2004 pennant.
Montreal has a vivid history in these areas. The 1955 riot over the suspension of Rocket Richard was as much, or more, about Quebec resentment at English domination as about the banishment of a star who had socked a referee.
In 1986, after a Stanley Cup win, about 5,000 fans broke windows and damaged property. Subsequent lawsuits found police were criminally negligent in not preparing for the onslaught, so police were ready in 1993 for the Canadiens' most recent Stanley Cup. More than 1,000 helmeted troops were in place anticipating the worst – they thought. But 15 buses and 47 police cars were destroyed, 168 people injured and 115 arrested.
Now this latest chapter and the guess here is that very few of the troublemakers – almost always young males – were actually fans leaving the arena. The chance to be part of a group foaming with adrenaline is a powerful lure to a certain class of individual who joins a mob and, with less accountability, behaves terribly. (Few individuals would throw a rock, but get brave in the middle of a mob.)
Likewise, booze skews the equation, although alcohol is probably mostly an accelerant when the ugliness surfaces. Every great celebration included plenty of booze and not all of them turned violent.
Plus, people used to be more accountable for their behaviour than nowadays.
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/417229
Chris Zelkovich
April 23, 2008
Dave Perkins
What kind of whacko fan attacks a police car, much less a police officer, after his team wins something?
And what kind of idiot goes wild in the streets after his team wins merely the fourth of 16 victories required for a championship? Surely they can't all be YouTube junkies.
Have they forgotten what a title smells like in Montreal? Are they now as easily impressed as those Maple Leafs fans who invade Yonge St. after a win in a first-round playoff game?
Or are sports fans so simply out of control that a minority believes any and all behaviour, when committed under cover of a crowd, is now acceptable? That explanation gets this vote.
All kinds of questions once again arise from the latest Montreal "hockey riot," albeit one that probably had little to do with hockey itself, in the way that soccer hooliganism hasn't much to do with soccer, other than as a proxy.
Riots in and around sports have been around for a long time and let us limit the conversation to North American sports. From the 1934 Detroit-St. Louis World Series melee through the Pistons-Pacers brawl at Auburn Hills, countless times mayhem that began on the field ended in the stands. Another kind of fan violence, like the Vancouver hockey riots in 1994, followed a crushing defeat. The Canucks fell to the New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup that year and 50,000 fans jammed Robson St., the mood soon turning ugly.
Historically, sports victories have set off the kind of joyous, city-wide parades that followed, say, the Brooklyn Dodgers' 1955 World Series win, or the way Pittsburgh danced all night in 1960 after Bill Mazeroski's home run. Even the Blue Jays' two World Series wins, lo these 16 and 15 years ago, were greeted with restrained enthusiasm across a celebrating city.
But increasingly, it's victories that have set off the fireworks – and fires. Detroit's World Series win in 1984 was remembered for torched police cars and dangerous streets. One of the Lakers' championships was followed by an almost locked-down L.A. Any number of college campuses summoned riot troops to deal with frenzied students after NCAA championships and recall the young woman accidentally shot dead by Boston police during out-of-control celebrations after the Red Sox won the 2004 pennant.
Montreal has a vivid history in these areas. The 1955 riot over the suspension of Rocket Richard was as much, or more, about Quebec resentment at English domination as about the banishment of a star who had socked a referee.
In 1986, after a Stanley Cup win, about 5,000 fans broke windows and damaged property. Subsequent lawsuits found police were criminally negligent in not preparing for the onslaught, so police were ready in 1993 for the Canadiens' most recent Stanley Cup. More than 1,000 helmeted troops were in place anticipating the worst – they thought. But 15 buses and 47 police cars were destroyed, 168 people injured and 115 arrested.
Now this latest chapter and the guess here is that very few of the troublemakers – almost always young males – were actually fans leaving the arena. The chance to be part of a group foaming with adrenaline is a powerful lure to a certain class of individual who joins a mob and, with less accountability, behaves terribly. (Few individuals would throw a rock, but get brave in the middle of a mob.)
Likewise, booze skews the equation, although alcohol is probably mostly an accelerant when the ugliness surfaces. Every great celebration included plenty of booze and not all of them turned violent.
Plus, people used to be more accountable for their behaviour than nowadays.
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/417229
