Vancouver's police chief is blaming "anarchists and criminals" for the violence that erupted last night after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup, reports the Vancouver Sun. Some numbers from AP: 100 arrests, 150 injuries requiring hospital treatment, 15 burned cars, 9 injured cops, three stabbing victims, and scores of smashed windows in a 10-block radius. All in all, a "world-class team and the worldly city it represents absorbed devastating blows Wednesday night," writes Helene Elliott in the Los Angeles Times.
This wasn't about hockey, "it was about power and senseless destruction and the horrifying force of the mob mentality," writes Elliott. "The Canucks' loss—their third in three trips to the Cup finals—was a handy excuse to turn this beautiful city into an ugly, smoky mess." Smashed windows can be replaced, "but memories of the destruction will linger." (Maybe this qualifies as a bright spot? The police chief notes that it took three hours to quell the violence; when the Canucks lost the Cup in 1994, it took six hours.)
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