June 15

Well. That was quite a day.

It started off with so much excitement and nervousness in the air. The arena was a whole different place. Hardly anyone ate dinner pre-game...it was just eerily silent as we waited.

At this point there was still so much hope!

I even had a really good shot on TV

Yes...I'm really that happy when I know a camera isn't on me o_O

Of course the game did not go as it was supposed to.

Ahh...my old friend Stanley. How have I touched the cup but the two teams I've worked for haven't. Am I jinxing them?

Boo. Boouins. Go home Boouins.

Of course it wasn't long after this that I checked my Twitter and started hearing reports of hooliganism.. That quickly escalated to insanity. Being in the arena and seeing nothing but news reports I was naturally terrified to leave. The fires were happening only a couple blocks from the arena. How did I know they wouldn't start outside any minute. I delayed leaving for a bit, but things were only getting worse and they police had stated shutting the bridges down (of which I must cross to go home) so I knew I had to go. Fortunately a co-worker was heading out and over a bridge at the same time and thus I had a posse of protection to get me onto the safe side.

It was a safe walk over, nothing bad happened or really presented itself with the chance of happening. However the voyage over wasn't without it's shock.

This is what we saw when we left the arena. We knew there was a fire so snapped some photos

The fire on the right started as we were crossing the bridge. That's when I got a little more panicked. It's one thing to know a fire is going on, quite another to see that others are still being started...and that is A LOT of smoke. As we crossed the bridge we could just see the smoke coming from all over the place. Vancouver was burning.

They're goin' in!

Vancouver Police HQ is immediately on the other side of the bridge we crossed. So this is the view we had. The bridge was blocked but every few minutes another van (yes van...like soccer mom Dodge Caravan) would speed off and over the bridge PACKED with police inside.

I spent the 16th AM editing nothing but riot footage for the morning news show. Sifting through it, I was angry, so upset, and sometimes moved to tears by what happened to some people.

I'm so sad that my memories of the Stanley Cup Finals will be this. It was scary watching the G20 riots from here. It's horrible being in them. I'm so glad that they riots didn't move to the arena or even start there. Minus a man falling from the viaduct onto the ground below, things were ok around the arena.

There were a lot of people that tried to stand up and stop the maddess. People trying to stop looters and vandals. I think most of these people ended up injured. To them: I'm so sorry, thank you for trying, and I really hope you are ok. You were so outnumbered, but you did the right thing.

It's unreal to think that the rioters thought they would get away with it. EVERYONE downtown had a camera or cell phone. It was also JAM packed with media, print and television. I have seen so many faces I wouldn't even know where to being in trying to pass that on to police. Several people have already been arrested and many more have turned themselves in. They will ALL pay. There are so many websites and facebook groups dedicated to bringing these people to justice and making sure they are shamed for their actions. They will not fade into the nigh and live their life out normally. Everyone will know who they are and what they did.

Think before you act people. The consequences will follow you until the day you die.

I have some more finals photos on my real camera. I'll post a link to those when I get them up.

Why did this happen?