Simon Coutts remembers being “heckled” by passersby in 2011 as he boarded up his bike shop on Vancouver’s Robson Street before the Canucks’ Game 7 Stanley Cup Final loss to the Boston Bruins, which would spur hordes of drunken fans to riot.
Simon’s Bike Shop had been in business since 1986, and Coutts said the Stanley Cup riot in 1994 made him take precautions when the Canucks made the final again.
“In 2011, I was out on the street every day. I was watching the parties, watching the people,” Coutts said on Tuesday. “There were just too many people out of control downtown and there’s drinking and all sorts of stuff … and then I guess you could say all hell broke loose.”
That night is on his mind again as the Canucks begin the next round of the playoffs against the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night.
He’s not alone in reflecting on Vancouver’s troubled relationship with the playoffs. Mayor Ken Sim acknowledged the riots at a news conference last month, saying the city had “a history” and they would need to make sure any playoffs viewing event would be very safe.
“We’re not just gonna say, ‘hey, let’s throw a party, this time’s gonna be different,'” he said.
“What we learned in the past was, that’s what they thought in 2011.”
Viewing parties
On Wednesday morning, Sim told reporters there would be a viewing party for Game 3 of the series on Sunday evening at Oak Meadows Park, and community centres and libraries were also looking into hosting events.
Sim said if the Canucks make it to the next round of the playoffs, there will be viewing opportunities at the PNE.
Vancouver Coun. Pete Fry said the city wants to spread viewing parties throughout the city rather than force fans into the downtown core. Additionally, the plan is to keep it family-friendly.
“We’re hoping to meet people where they’re at,” he told CBC News.
He said past riots are on the city’s mind, which is why there won’t be a “big activation” right downtown.
Other Metro Vancouver cities including Delta, Maple Ridge and New Westminster have already made plans for playoff viewing parties.
Ian Tostenson, CEO of the B.C. Restaurant & Food Services Association, said in an interview that he supports the Vancouver mayor’s “cautious approach” to Stanley Cup celebrations given the city’s “track record.”
“Big events like FIFA and big concerts and stuff, we’re able to do that really well,” he said. “I just worry that if we just kind of recklessly sort of go throw some TVs up and invite, you know, 20,000 people on Georgia Street again, I just predict there’s going to be trouble somewhere.”
He said holding another large public viewing party downtown carries risks because if “something goes terribly wrong, it’s just going to set us back years and I think we’ve made some progress here.”
Ten years after the streets of Vancouver were flooded with rioters after the Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, Ian Hanomansing talks to the former police chief about that night and the role cellphones played. He also catches up with a couple who went viral after being photographed kissing on the ground.
‘A different atmosphere’
On June 15, 2011, the day of Game 7, a Vancouver Police Department spokesperson said there was “a different atmosphere” in the city compared with 1994, and that police were confident there wouldn’t be another riot after the success of the Olympics a year before.
A report produced after the 2011 riot, entitled “The Night the City Became a Stadium,” laid out how those predictions went up in flames.
“Vancouver tried to do a good thing and found itself in an almost impossible situation,” said the report, commissioned by the province and the City of Vancouver. “There were too many people, not too few police. No plausible number of police could have prevented trouble igniting in the kind of congestion we saw on Vancouver streets that night.”
Report authors John Furlong and Douglas Keefe said alcohol and binge-drinking that night “were like gasoline on a fire.”
“Alcohol fuelled nasty behaviour and triggered law-breaking that surprised and galled us all.”
Police combed through CCTV video and asked the public for help in identifying suspects, resulting in hundreds of criminal charges.
‘No one wants a repeat’
Coutts says he remembers the fires, the broken windows at The Bay, London Drugs and a neighbouring pizza shop — and the “intense” moments when rioters tried to pry off the plywood he’d put up to protect his bike store.
He said his daughter called him “bawling,” imploring him to come home, but he stayed to protect the store.
For Coutts, lingering memories of the 2011 riot make him think a “big party” isn’t a good idea, but the family-friendly indoor viewing parties for away games at Rogers Arena have been both controlled and successful.
“Right now, my feeling is a good feeling, so I don’t have the same feeling I had last time,” he said. “No one wants a repeat.”