Real ____ would never do that!

I just returned from a glorious five days
spent motorcycling through Washington and Oregon.  We crossed the
border into the United States last Sunday and then headed over the
Cascade Mountains, wound our way down to northern Oregon, then meandered
through the central part of the state, before heading back north up the
Oregon Coast, and catching a ferry back to Vancouver Island from Port
Angeles, WA last night.  All in all, a fantastic trip.  We saw some
absolutely spectacular scenery, from the majestic snow-capped Cascades
to the rolling farm country of central Oregon, to rainforests, to lush
forests along the Columbia River, to the beauty of winding roads along
the Pacific Ocean.  Simply incredible.

And, of course, as good Canadians, we
made sure to find a pub somewhere on Monday and Wednesday to catch games
six and seven of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Vancouver Canucks
and the Boston Bruins.  Both times, we would have been better off
staying on our bikes as the Canucks were abysmal and embarrassing in
their capitulation to the Bruins.  Even more embarrassing than the play of the Canucks themselves, as you have no doubt heard by now, was the behaviour of some Vancouver residents
who spent the hours following the game seven loss rioting, burning,
looting, destroying, fighting, and who knows what else in a a display of
petulant and boorish behaviour such as our country does not often see
on such a scale.

Unsurprisingly, the social  media world
has been abuzz since Wednesday night with condemnations, explanations,
and apologies pouring in from a variety of sources (two of the better
ones, in my biased opinion, were written by friends of mine here and here).
 I have to admit, my first response to hearing the news of the riots
back home, was something bordering on apathy.  Perhaps it’s because I am
not a native British Columbian and don’t have a strong sense of
personal identity tied up with the city of Vancouver.  Perhaps it’s
because I don’t really like the Canucks.  Or, perhaps it’s because
people behaving badly is rarely surprising.  For all of its
self-understanding as a paradisiacal city that is the envy of the world,
Vancouver is, last time I checked, populated by human beings,
and human beings, wherever they live, are prone to stupid and
destructive behaviour—especially when you throw 100 000 of them together
into a single place, add a generous mix of alcohol, testosterone, and
media-fuelled tribalism centred on a sports team.  The only thing
shocking about Wednesday night, from my perspective, was that people
were shocked by it.