On June 15th 2011 100,000 hockey fans, disappointed with the Vancouver Canucks game seven loss in the Stanley Cup Finals, rioted. In the following hours the city descended into violence, property destruction and chaos.
There were four major contributing factors to the carnage; the alcohol soaked nature of the crowd, the relationship between the youth and the police, the sheer number of people present and the cultural primer or mental state of the rioters. Although none of these factors excuse or justify the actions of the minority who committed violence and vandalism, they do shed light on the larger societal context of the riot, revealing a communal culpability that would be shortsighted to ignore.
