The 2008 Montreal Hockey Riot

In a scene in The Simpsons, Chief Wiggum busts in on Fat Tony and his gang and claims to have them on murder. To which Fat Tony (voiceover Joe Mantegna) answers coyly, "What's a murder?"

I'm still chuckling as I write that.

Anyway, this is what I was reminded of when people, including the Mayor of Montreal Gilles Tremblay justified the recent riots following a hockey game as being perpetuated by people who weren't real hockey fans. Or specifically in the case of Mr. Tremblay, real Habs fans don't riot.

He's right up to a point. It only takes a few to ruin it for the majority. This is indeed the case here.

Nonetheless, it happened. Thus, his words can be interpreted to mean: Enter broom. Sweep dirt under the rug.

While it may be true that perhaps some of the troublemakers were indeed there to destroy property and possibly had planned for this beforehand, a good number of them were wearing Habs jerseys. Heck, some of them may even be good hockey players. And what to say of all the people who took part in the subsequent looting? I'm sure many, shrugged their shoulders and took advantage.

It's funny. When riots take place in Europe over soccer, everyone looks in horror and wonders what's wrong with them. It has to be a societal problem. When it happens here it's treated as an anomaly.

Is it?

I simply look for patterns. I'm not a psychologist or sociologist but the fact is that Montreal has a modest record of violence following games. Luckily for us, it has not reached the levels we've seen in Europe but in a North American context it's pretty colored. It happened in 1993. I believe it happened in 1986. And we all know 1955. We've also had a distasteful record of booing the American anthem for no apparent reason on a consistent basis in many arenas across the land. If you think the Canadian anthem is spared in Quebec think twice. O'Canada was always booed during the anthem at Montreal Expos games.

In Quebec, that's what we do: boo. But heaven forbid you criticize anything connected to Quebec.

So why not dismiss these people as "not real political aficionado's?" It's not a political statement.
It's disrespectful and boorish behaviour. How would we react if Americans incessantly booed our anthem for no reason? I think we can all guess.

Luckily for Canada, we've been spared European style social or political riots that last for days. Though we've had our share of them.

Two things to consider here: cues and upbringing.

Cues come in the form of leadership. If our leaders speak in a way it's alright to chastise people for speaking English all in the name of protecting French culture, well guess what? Some people will dutifully oblige. If the Mayor comes out and tells his citizens "don't worry, we're not like that" we all sit back and say, "phew!"

That's poor leadership. It sends the wrong cue to people.

Upbringing is another. Today, the family has seems to have abandoned its role in developing upstanding citizens. We "outsource" our responsibilities now. And even then, educators (traditionally those trusted to raise or kids in the absence of parents) are restricted with what they can do. No wonder people are reluctant to be accountable now.

We're not taught and the cues do not encourage it.

The other day I was riding my bike and noticed a mother and her son in the passenger seat (I will assume it was the son) coming up to a stop. She rolled right through it. What example did that set for her child?

That's just one small example but the point is that all begins with the family and ends somewhere in society - for good, bad or ugly.

We need to get back to the roots. There is no reason why so many kids should have been in the streets that late on a school after a hockey game.

Now the MUC, SQ and RCMP are joining forces to prevent future riots. We're in lock-down mode and unfortunately whatever good vibes were present during the series against the Boston Bruins were permanently removed after Game 7.

And what is this celebrating like idiots after a first round victory anyway?