2008-04-22

The Round One Riot

I won't bother with the game 7 review. We all saw it. Let's talk riot.

Since the focus of all this seems centred on 5/10/15/whatever police cars, lets put things into perspective in terms of cars. According to Stats Canada, there is a car stolen every three minutes. If you apply that national rate to Montreal, you get a car stolen in the city every 30 minutes. Realistically, it would be more because Montreal is urban. It would be even more on April 21 because the weather was nice enough for people to be outside at night. That adds up to a lower limit of 50 cars stolen in Montreal on April 21. I'll leave the vandalism and petty theft rates as an exercise for you to do at home.

So 50 cars are stolen every day. That's way more than five. So... where is the outrage?

I'm not saying this riot was not newsworthy - the circumstances and unusual nature make it news. I'm not I saying that these actions should be tolerated, although I'll go out on a limb and suggest adding more cops with batons and plexiglass shields is probably not a recipe for success. I am saying the outraged reaction is misplaced, maybe even hypocritical.

Stuff was burned, smashed and stolen. The arsonists, vandals and thieves are unquestionably compete assholes. However, unlike some of the roughhousing that had taken place in other cities, no one was hospitalized as a result of this riot. If you want to do some major tut-tutting, there are far worse injustices every day in every city than five torched cop cars. Injustices even worse than fifty stolen cars. Get some perspective, folks.

Now, to you juvenile delinquents: Save the riots for historically significant events. Say, if Koivu punches Cherry in the adam's apple for being called 'Sako Koy-voy' one time too many, and as a result Bettman suspends the captain for the remainder of the season and playoffs, then by all means, riot away.

~

WOOOOO FLYERS!

Also, Go Rivet! But Go Flames More!

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"say, if Koivu punches Cherry in the adam's apple for being called 'Sako Koy-voy' one time too many, and as a result Bettman suspends the captain for the remainder of the season and playoffs, then by all means, riot away."

Yeah, I remember Cherry referring to Koivu as such in Rockem Sockem 14 (it was after Koivu scored that memorable goal against Boston in Game 3 of the 2002 playoffs).

I didn't know whether to laugh or be outraged at such incompetence/insolence.

4/23/2008 5:34 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't be so hard on Cherry......geriatric dementia is a sad & terrible thing! :p

4/23/2008 1:07 p.m.  
Blogger sgt.turmeric said...

Here in Vancouver a bunch of cars have been keyed recently.

Police say more than 100 cars have been vandalized recently, including about 60 this month outside Vancouver's Science World.
...
The estimated range of combined damage is anywhere between $250,000 to $1,000,000.


That cost estimate seems pretty excessive for some scratches. But then again I'm always amazed at what it costs to fix cosmetic damage to cars. What a scam.

I don't think the car keyings were a reaction to the Canucks missing the playoffs, though.

4/23/2008 3:44 p.m.  
Blogger Jeff J said...

$1,000,000??? For "more than 100" cars??

Anyone running a body shop would have to be considered a suspect.

4/23/2008 9:46 p.m.  

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