This is the True Vancouver

You can always find good in any situation and evidently Vancouver is a city that knows this. 

Riots started around 8pm Tuesday night after the Vancouver Canucks lost in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Store windows were smashed. Fist fights broke out. Cars were set on fire. 12 hours later there were still crowds of people downtown, only these crowds were full of generous volunteers who were helping clean up the mess from the night before. 

Hudson's Bay at Georgia and Granville got hit hard last night. Literally. Just about every single window was smashed, the outdoor canopy was set on fire, smoke detectors inside set off the sprinklers, and tons of merchandise was stolen. You would think that when the president of Hudson's Bay phoned into the radio, she would be full of anger. No. Instead, she was so grateful and uplifted by all the people who had shown up volunteering to help clean the mess. 

The depressing sheets of wood that boarded the windows of Hudson's Bay became messages of hope for a city that broke out into chaos only 12 hours earlier. 

After all, the rioting was not a true reflection of Vancouver. It represented a small group of idiots who were stupid enough to cause all this trouble. The rioting was not a display of Vancouver's true spirit. This morning, Vancouver's true spirit became evident.

People began writing messages thanking the police and cleanup crews for all their help. Many messages were in support of the Canucks, congratulating them on a terrific season and wishing them all the best next season. There were many apologies for how people reacted last night... in fact, I'll let the pictures below speak for themselves. 

Here's Emily signing the boards...

...and Edwina signing too.

People were leaving notes on the police cruisers, thanking them for their help and dedication.

Emily and Edwina

This morning was a real display of the people of Vancouver. I hope the Canucks see the boards and all the wonderful messages people have left. They were amazing, and I hope they all realize that the real Vancouver is behind them 110%.

Disappointed

I'm REALLY disappointed tonight. Not because of the Canucks losing, but rather because of the way people acted tonight. I didn't even get to see the end of the game because people began setting a car on fire as soon as Boston scored on our empty net. It was Game #7. Keyword: GAME. No people, the world is not ending because Vancouver didn't win the Stanley Cup. 

Riots began breaking out before the game even ended. As soon as that car went up in flames in front of the CBC big screen, people started running away (literally running). I got tear gassed by the police who were using tear gas to control riots. Man that stuff burns your eyes!! People were smashing cars, breaking storefront windows, setting things on fire, breaking out into fights - it was not a display of good sportsmanship. It's a game and I know a lot is at stake, and a lot of people were hoping for a win, but ultimately, it's a game. It's tough playing in a playoff series like this and I can't imagine any of those Canucks players were happy Boston won tonight. But they worked hard and got this far. It wasn't how they wanted it to end, but it's not their fault. Yes they were the team that lost, but they gave it all they had and it just wasn't meant to be. I'm still proud of how far they came. They had some good really good games in the playoffs this year, but unfortunately people tend to focus on the fact that they didn't win it all, rather than looking at how far they came.

Luongo, you're awesome. As an athlete, I know ya can't be at your best all the time. He worked hard tonight and I respect him. You can't control whether or not you have a good day. He worked hard tonight, and that's all you can ask of him. I don't care what people say, I'm not bashing the Canucks. I was hoping they'd win, but they didn't. It happens. Second best team in the NHL. Western Conference Champions. I'd say that's something to be proud of. I don't think that deserves an entire city to break out into riots. But apparently people in Vancouver are stupid and immature and feel rioting is acceptable.

Here is a happier scene - caught the end of the national anthem (before the game started - people weren't in an angry rioting mood just yet)

I saw this on my way to work this morning. Oh Vancouver, we'll have to wait until next year for another chance at the Cup!

Watching the game at the CBC big screen. 

People in trees...

...and people on light posts?! (Little hard to see)

Anyway, Canucks are still awesome. One game doesn't define a team, and I still support them. They played well in the playoffs, just not well enough to win the Stanley Cup. They'll learn from this and move on. I'm proud of them :)

Granville Island, on my walk home :)

And for next season:

It all comes down to Game 7

Game 7 - BRING IT ON!!!

I went down to Hamilton and Georgia yesterday to watch game 6 on the CBC big screen. I wasn't alone. There were a few other people watching with me. In fact, there were approximately 100 000 people with me. 

Game didn't go as we had hoped, but realistically, I don't know if many people expected the Canucks to win in Boston. They haven't had any good games in Boston this series. HOWEVER, game 7 is in Vancouver, and I think people have high hopes for, what is, our last chance to win the cup!

Here is the crowd looking at... themselves during the CBC broadcast of the game!

This was the front page of the Vancouver Metro newspaper the next morning. I MADE THE FRONT PAGE!

There were lots of people there. Some sat in trees...

...some painted themselves blue.

Despite the Canucks losing by a fair bit, the crowd still went wild when we scored the two goals. The first goal was a little more exciting, simply because we still had a (small) chance of catching up to Boston (who had 4 at the time). The second goal was so close to the end of the game that the crowd was a little less enthusiastic, but still went wild. Part of that might of been because people had had more to drink at that point. No, you weren't allowed beer into the CBC area, but people still snuck it in.

Game 7 tomorrow. It'll all be over in 24 hours. Well, unless it goes into like triple overtime. Hopefully Vancouver will be in a celebratory mood this time tomorrow evening. We'll see.

We can do this Canucks!!! And no matter what people say about Luongo, no matter how many nasty comments he gets from critics, he's awesome. So many people love him when he does well, but bashes him when he isn't rock solid. It's hard work. I couldn't do what he's doing, and I respect him. It's not easy to do what's he's doing, or what any of the Canucks are doing. So... CHEERS to a good game tomorrow night!!!!!

I'll be wearing my lucky underwear :)

Conquered Bowen Island

Today Lisa, David and I went hiking on Bowen Island. This was not the easy, relaxing little hike I was expecting. Infact, the picture above may be somewhat deceiving. The picture above was from our walk TO the mountain. The walk TO the mountain was flat and stable. The mountain... not so much. 

FIRST we started off at Horseshoe Bay where we caught a ferry to Bowen Island.

Got to Bowen Island :)

The Public Library

So we began our hike up Mt. Gardner, first to the North Summit. It was quite the hike. In total we hiked approximately 15km in trail length, with a total of 1800 ft in elevation gain. It was a really challenging hike, both up and down the mountain. We did it in about 3.5 hours. There were stretches that lasted about 15 minutes of nothing but steep, uphill climbing. It was a good workout though!! 

Here's Lisa and I about halfway up to the top.

This is the view at THE TOP that we eventually made it to - this is the North Summit.

And then we hiked for another 10 minutes and found the South Summit.

South Summit at the top of Mt. Gardner.

On our way back from the mountain, we had about a 20 minute walk back to the ferry dock. A bus drove by and Lisa waved her hands in the air in desperation and moaned "Oh bus, if only you could give us a ride" AND SURE ENOUGH it stopped. We RAN to it like starving children running to turkey dinner. The bus driver said he saw our desperate wave and stopped for us. That 4 minute bus ride felt so good. My quads, calves, knees... just about every muscle in my lower body was aching. 

Once we got back to Horseshoe Bay, we got some (well deserved) Baskin Robins ice cream :)

T'was a long day, and I'm pooped. 

Tomorrow the Canucks play for the Stanley Cup! If they win tomorrow night, the Stanley Cup belongs to Vancouver!! My friends and I are planning to watch the game downtown, outside on the big screens. Should be fun!!

LET'S DO THIS CANUCKS!!!

Week's worth of stories

This week has been a very long and stressful week. I received some very scary news last weekend; my roommate in Vancouver had a heart attack late last Saturday night when I was in Kelowna. After 7 days in the hospital (3 days in intensive care) and surgery to have a pacemaker put in, she is doing well and is expected to make a full recovery. She's hoping to be home in the next couple of days. 

I spent many nights in the hospital this week with my roommate and her family, and wasn't in a mood to keep up with the blog. But now that she's doing well, I can breathe a sigh of relief and update my blog.

Last weekend I went to Kelowna to watch some of my (former) gymnastics teammates (and best friends) compete at a gym meet, the Ogopogo Invitational. Kelowna is about a 5 hour drive East of Vancouver, however I didn't drive. I had the option of taking the 13.5 hour, overnight greyhound bus ride up but since it didn't sound very appealing, I opted to fly :)

*Click on the picture to view larger image*

It was SO nice seeing some of my former gym coaches and all the people I called my family when I did gym (and still call them my family today). We were able to catch the last bit of the hockey game back at the hotel before heading out to dinner. After the 3rd period the score was tied 2-2 and we made it back to the hotel right before overtime started. We watched 11 seconds of the game - the 11 seconds of overtime. Canucks didn't wait long before scoring. It was super exciting!

These are all the girls and coaches from my gym club in Toronto. The picture was taken outside of The Keg, where we went to eat dinner after the competition.

And of course the coaches covered us in silly string after our group picture :P

Here's Michelle, Sarah, Alison, Me and Marlee at The Keg :)

Kelowna was a lot of fun. It's very small - there's like one major road down the entire city. It's kinda funny. And it was HOT that weekend!!!

The Canucks had a pretty brutal game 3 and 4 in Boston. I don't even want to mention the score of each of those games. I actually didn't see either game - both nights I was at the hospital with my roommate. However, I watched game 5 with some friends on Friday night, and it ended much better. VANCOUVER WON 1-0. We're now up 3-2 in the series. One more win for the Stanley Cup!! It'll be tough though - next game is in Boston. However we have two chances to win, and if it goes to game 7 it'll be back in Vancouver.

The city went absolutely bonkers when they won on Friday. I was at a friend's house watching the game and on my way downtown people were cheering and honking their horns. Even hours after the game finished, people were celebrating and going nuts as though they had JUST won! Everyone broke out into singing the national anthem on the skytrain... and crowds were chanting "we want the cup" and "go canucks go"

This is at Granville Skytrain station

Granville Street (downtown Vancouver) was PACKED with people for about 12 blocks, at least. This is near Granville Street and Robson Street (right downtown).

Everybody was as happy as ever. I must have gotten 50 high 5's from a bunch of random strangers.

The pressure's on. The next game is Monday night, and will be played in Boston. It's a big one. It could be THE one. It might be the last one, I hope it is. Canucks have a chance of bringing home the Stanley Cup on Monday. They've gotta play at their best though. I'll be downtown cheering as hard as I can. 

Today (Saturday) I spent the day at the beach with Edwina, David, Matt and Lisa.

We went to Jericho Spanish Banks and played volleyball for a good long while, as well as worked on our tans :P I'm so white - I could really use some more sun! The water was FREEZING cold, so after volleyball we dipped out feet in the water and ate pineapple and apples while sitting on the rocks.

It's been a long week, but things are much better now than they were at the beginning of the week. My roommate's doing well and should be home soon which will be great.

We want the cup!!!

Canucks spirit it everywhere. You can't get escape it! There are many signs around Vancouver supporting the canucks. 

Nice sign (on a newspaper stand downtown)

Violent sign (on the seabus)

At lunch today at work a bunch of us organized a game of dominion - it's a card game (with a special deck of cards) where you use action cards and money cards to buy things, and ultimately gain as much estate as possible. It takes a while to explain how it all works, but in short, it's super fun! 

Tonight after work, Emily, Edwina and I headed to North Van and ate dinner at a German restaurant. I had a schnitzel with swiss cheese. It was yummy!!! Here's Emily and Edwina on our seabus ride back to downtown Vancouver.

Tomorrow is movie night with people from work :) And then EARLY EARLY Saturday morning (I'm talking EARLY) I fly out to Kelowna to watch my two very good friends compete in a gymnastics meet. SO excited to see them!!

Tomorrow I am filling in for someone at our toastmasters meeting. A client meeting came up, and I'm taking over the position of the "word of the day" person. So I have to think up a word of the day to go with tomorrow's theme of "let your senses guide you" and prepare a 2 minute presentation to introduce the word I choose. I should go work on that now...

Drop the puck. We want the cup.

Canucks game was good today. Not that I saw all of it, but we won and therefore I feel good saying it went well :) Haha After work about 7 of my friends and I met at Lisa's place to watch the game. 

Here's something I saw on my walk to Lisa's from the skytrain station:

I made it there about halfway through the 1st period. Not much happened. Lots of fighting though, especially right after the 1st period ended (disappointed in that but hey, there's a lot at stake here - emotions are running high). Not much happened in the game. I had to leave halfway through the second period. You really only had to catch the last minute, or literally the last 30 seconds to see the one and only goal of the entire game. Luckily, it was for the canucks, scored with 19 seconds left in the third period. I was on my way to the gym (I skipped out early to go to gymnastics - I was wearing my canucks shirt though!) and I was madly texting my friends to see how the game was going. 1-0 for the Canucks in game 1 of the stanley cup finals. I heard on the radio today that 83% of the time in games past, the team that won game #1 in the finals has gone on to win the cup. I'm not predicting anything here, but it's a fact. Vancouver's hoping for good things!!

Coming home from the gym I take the skytrain back to Vancouver, and there had been a fight at Granville station. Lots of police and paramedics. I saw one guy bleeding from what looked like his eye. It was pretty bad. Mostly likely people had too much to drink, and got over excited about the hockey finals. Outside there were people singing and blowing horns. 

Here's there's people yelling We want the cup and Go Canucks Go! The game ended around 8pm Pacific Time, and this video was taken around 10:45pm. People were still excited. 

Game #2 is on Saturday - I will be in Kelowna and mostly likely won't be able to watch it. I'm bummed about that, which is why I'm not missing Monday's game :) Let's go Vancouver - "We are all Canucks"

Oh that reminds me, on my way to gym, the skytrain passed the Rogers Arena (where the Canucks played tonight) and the entire exterior of the arena is all decked out in signs, and banners and lamppost flags, of course supporting the canucks. It gave me chills. Definitely some serious canucks spirit in Vancouver!!