Canucks Central

[whatnext]

Christie Blatchford neatly skewers the myth that the Winter Olympics were all sweetness and light. Gregor should have known better as well:

...As for the nostalgic wisdom that golly, how different this all was from the gentle Winter Olympics of the previous year, I am unconvinced, and I say that as one who was there for the duration and who every night walked home along Granville from the main press centre at the water’s edge to my hotel at the other end of the street.

I called Granville The River of Vomit back then, because by the wee hours, it so often was.

The streets were flooded with tens of thousands of people then too, also mostly young, often mostly drunk.

In those days, they wore Team Canada shirts and carried Canadian flags. If it was more benign in temperature, that was probably because on the one occasion when things veered out of control — a smidge of daytime rioting that broke out at a downtown protest early in the Games — the police acted swiftly. But then, the law probably had more clout or was more driven back then, with Canada’s international reputation at stake and tourists from all over the world in town...

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/06/17/christie-blatchford-anatomy-of-the-mob/