Anniversary Part II-Vancouver, Wicked and The Stanley Cup Riots

Last year we had a chance to go see Wicked after a friend had talked it up so much. Thanks Courtney! We went to Seattle and loved it! So when another friend found out that it was coming again to Vancouver we decided that would be part of our anniversary was going to Wicked again. We ordered tickets as a group, we got a great deal. Most of the people were from our church.

Who would know in Oct/Nov that the Stanley Cup game #7 would be playing that night just blocks away from the theater where we would be going.

We made out plans to ride the bus from White Rock(just across the boarder from Blaine, WA) not far from our house. Then we wouldn't have to deal with parking and issues getting out of downtown depending on the outcome of the Stanley Cup. Which we found out could have been just as bad if they would have won.

It took a little longer then we expected and riding on a bus with roudy hockey fans(I'm sure they had already started drinking) was interesting but we made it. We were a bit worried about were we had planned on eating, would it be full if they had a tv broadcasting the game? All bars along the way were packed and had people standing outside trying to watch the game. We lucked out with the place we had planed on going to, they had 2 available tables.

We had a fantastic dinner-authentic pizza and the best dessert. We headed to the theater but stopped to make sure how we'd get to our bus on the way home. Vancouver was loosing and the crowds were getting a little scary at this point but Craig reassured me we'd be ok. The middle picture is the crowd in front of a giant tv screen just to the west of the theater. They estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people were in the downtown area for the game.

The play started at 8 pm. At intermission around 9:30 as the lights went up we were told not to go outside "due to the events going on." We could see the remains of a burnt car right were all the people had been watching the game. We could hear loud booms from tear gas. We looked out the other window and saw a guy throw some kind of bottle on fire towards what we found out later were 2 police cars that they were setting on fire. More tear gas and black smoke coming from the burning cars. Then we saw another guy throw a newspaper box(the big metal ones) on the windshield of a car. We were then asked to move away from the window. I couldn't believe what were we seeing! Of course I started to worry, I had no desire to walk through any of that. I knew we had to go about 5 blocks to get to our bus stop.

I calmed down and decided to just enjoy the rest of play and we'd worry about it afterward. The play ended around 11 pm. We were told we had to stay in the building until the theater got word of safe routes to leave the area. About 1/2 hour later they announced the safest and open routes for driving. The Skytrain was running but there was no bus service out of downtown. Great, we had no way to get home. With cell phones we all gathered by the entrance and made a plan on how to get all of us home. A few others were in the same boat as us. We rode with some friends back to our car. The road that we left on ended up being closed and we were sent down a alley by the police only to have something thrown from a window above. We ended up getting home around 1 am. I'm so thankful for the safety in numbers. I hope never to be around a riot again. So sad for the people of Vancouver.