Did All Dodgers Fans Move to Vancouver?

What do most people remember when asked about the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? Not Landon Donovan’s goal or even the winner of the tournament, but Vuvuzelas. Completely irrelevant to the game of soccer, people focused a great portion of their attention toward the annoying plastic horns that were blown by the masses of fans for 90 minutes straight. Unfortunately, a similar irrelevant response might be used to answer the same question about the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals…They’ll remember a ton of idiots in Vancouver engaging in a full blown riot which was likely fueled by too much alcohol.

Anyone who has visited Vancouver probably knows how challenging it is to buy beer in the city from a place other than a bar or restaurant. In addition to the inaccessibility to get some brewskies in bulk, it doesn’t come at a fair price. Based on the photos and videos I saw of the riots last night, the challenging pursuit of alcohol is a good thing and the thought of enforcing a city-wide ban of the substance even crossed my mind. “Prohibition in a Canadian city?” Yup, sounds like blasphemy.

My own experience with the inconvenient pursuit of purchasing beer in Vancouver took place on February 21, 2010.  I was at the Vogue movie theater on Granville Street preparing to watch team USA beat team Canada in the round-robin game for Men’s Olympic Hockey.  Vogue is a great venue to watch a game of such magnitude, but the only problem (other than Canadians outnumbering us by a ratio of 20:1) was the $7 cans of Molson being sold at the snack bar. My friends and I refused to pay this amount of money for sucky beer.

I probably shouldn’t call their beer “sucky” here. I might trigger another riot…

With just over an hour to spare before game time, we thought it would be best to visit a convenient store and pick up a 24-pack. I grabbed my backpack and headed out with one of my friends. We walked a couple blocks to a 7-11, but did not see their beer selection. After being informed by the clerk that they didn’t sell alcohol we asked where the nearest grocery store was. “4 blocks thataway,” the clerk directs us. We voyaged on 4 blocks “thataway” until we reached our destination. Again, no luck with the beer. We asked the clerk where we could find some alcohol in this friggin’ town and he responded with “The liquor store, duh.” Apparently alcohol isn’t sold at convenient or grocery stores in Vancouver. They have 6 locations in the entire city designated as the only places where alcohol is sold without going to a bar or restaurant.  The clerk provides us with directions on how to find the nearest liquor store and unfortunately it involved about 6 blocks in a direction not close to the theater.

We venture on at a quick pace until we finally reach what is arguably one of the most crowded places in the city.  We grab a 15-pack (I know, weird) of Budweiser and bring it to the register. The cashier says “That’ll be $30.” 30 DOLLARS FOR 15 CANS OF BUD! Talk about getting raped by supply and demand. We ask for some lipstick because we like to at least look pretty while getting screwed, give the cashier her Monopoly-looking Canadian money, and trek back toward the theater. As we get close to Vogue, we come across some fellow American dudes that looked like they were hiking through the Sahara. They all stop and look at us with wide eyes when one of them quickly points at the beer symbolizing Redneck-USA and exclaims “WHERE THE HELL DID YOU FIND THAT!” Instead of responding with “The liquor store, duh.” We gave them directions to the place that sold over-priced and somewhat metric packaged beer. 

Upon entering the theater, I smuggled the beer inside with the use of my backpack. The Canadians around us were amazed at our “clever” scheme of bringing in the contraband. What surprised me was the amount of people willing to pay for the over-priced beer at Vogue.  Sure enough, a few beers deep they transformed from polite “eh-saying” Canadians to uncivilized-whale-harpooning-hosers. It was incredible, I felt like I was at Dodger stadium. 

I understand that the drunken idiots that I ran into that night do not represent all of Vancouver, so I gave the city the benefit of the doubt. Plus it was the Olympics and emotions were running high.  Fast forward about 15 months later to San Jose, California when the Sharks faced the Canucks in the Conference Finals. Hundreds upon hundreds of Canucks fans flocked south and uh oh…alcohol is easily accessible here. I have never witnessed so many drunken morons outside of a NASCAR event in my life. After game 4, my wife and I removed our Sharks jerseys, got in our car, and started our drive home. A few miles outside of the city center, an SUV full of 30-something-year-old Canucks fans pull up to a stoplight next to us. These guys have no idea that we are Sharks fans, but one decides to roll down his window and shout obscenities at my wife. Classy stuff! Again, these degenerates do not represent the entire fan-base, so I’ll give everyone else the benefit of the doubt.

Now for the shenanigans that took place last night: cars overturned, police cars on fire, stabbings, looting, unconfirmed reports of a Bruins fan being pushed off an overpass (Crime in Canada? B-b-b-b-but Michael Moore said this doesn’t happen north of the border). Well these people don’t represent the entire…I’m going to stop myself from finishing the rest of that generic line. When my observations of such atrocious behavior drastically outweigh any positive observations, it might be safe to say that the Vancouver Canucks have a pretty classless group of supporters with the exception of a few opposed to the usual saying of “every fan base has a few bad apples.” I have met a few really cool Canucks fans, but they are heavily outnumbered by those who give the fan base a bad name. 

Back to my original point about alcohol…as an advocate of inebriation myself, I’m not lobbying for prohibition in Vancouver, but Jesus!...these guys might need to be cut off city-wide after the first period expires. Anyway, thank you “Karma God” for not letting these asses enjoy a cup.

I dare you not to laugh