The moment the tear gas came out

If you've been following my Blips then you'll know all about the Canucks. The local hockey team went through to the NHL Stanley Cup finals. It had taken over the city. You could not escape it.

In 1994 they were knocked out and there was rioting in the city. This time round they made it either further and for weeks people have been talking about what might happen should they lose.

Well they made it to game 7 of 7 in the final round against Boston. And they lost.

We watched the game in a bar about 10 minutes away from the downtown area. Once the game was finished we went for a walk in to see what was happening. Cars being overturned, shop windows being smashed, fires being started, people throwing bottles. Crazy. And then the tear gas and flash bombs were left off by the police. At this point, and after much frantic running through the crowd, we decided to get out of there as fast as possible.

Sadly not everyone decided to leave. And for the next 4 hours the riot police were doing their best to control the situation. Shops being looted. Shops that we regularly shopped in. It was weird seeing it on the tv. From our balcony you could see and smell smoke as well as hear all the helicopters flying overhead, I counted 5 at one point.

An embarrassing night for what is normally a beautiful city.