Kissing Couple In Vancouver Hockey Riot Identified, Smooch Explained
Upon first glance, you might think this couple making out in the middle of the street during a riot is insane. Yet there is an explanation for what seems to be a random moment of passion. The pair, identified as 29-year-old Scott Jones from Perth, Australia and Alexandra Thomas, a student from Vancouver, were actually in a state of distress.
Thomas had been injured after getting knocked down by a shield so Jones laid next to her for comfort. She started to cry and Jones kissed her to calm her down.
And it's as simple as that.
Props to Mashable.
Vancouver Loses Cup, City's Image Takes Bigger Hit
On the shores of the “most livable city in the world,” history tragically repeated itself for the second time in less than two decades Wednesday night, and it went far beyond the Vancouver Canucks stunning Stanley Cup Finals loss to the Boston Celtics.
In a scene gravely familiar to the one that followed Vancouver’s Game 7 finals lost to the New York Rangers in 1994, rioters---compromised mainly of young males--- took to the street following Wednesday’s clinching defeat, rioting stores, destroying business and burning hundreds of vehicles to the ground. By the time all the madness had subsided, more than 100 people were hospitalized, several of them in serious condition, and more than 100 arrests had been made, all within a ten block radius of the city’s main shopping district.
Soon, city officials will place a monetary assessment on all the damage, but even the most pronounced of sociological studies will be hard pressed to calculate all the mounting harm done to the image of the region lauded as the world’s most refined by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Thursday morning, with all the shock and dust still settling, Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson went on the offensive. “Organized hoodlums bent on creating chaos incited this riot,” he charged, noting the city proved with the 2010 Winter Olympics that it could hold peaceful gatherings. “They were here to make trouble and they succeeded," said Robertson.
But why? And where did it all come from? It certainly seemed the furthest thing from the realm of possibility when disappointed, but appreciative Vancouver fans rose to their feet to give Boston goalie Tim Thomas a standing-ovation after he brilliantly snuffed-out all 37 shots fired by their heroes.
Was it simply a matter of the spirit of the people? A sign of all the depressed times? Hardly, argued local activist and ardent Canuck fan Derrick O’Keefe. “'Sometimes a riot is the ‘language of the unheard’, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr. But sometimes a riot is just an expression of young male stupidity and violence —this was the case last night in Vancouver,” he winced.
The Canucks have released a statement thanking fans for their support and condemning “the destructive action and needless violence demonstrated by a minority of people.” ---Glenn Minnis
