Here’s Proof Vancouver Has Been Rioting Over Sports Games Since 1958
All photos courtesy Greystone Books

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Here’s Proof Vancouver Has Been Rioting Over Sports Games Since 1958

A new photo book looks at the city’s history of protesting racism, communism, animal captivity, food prices, and Game 7.

Everyone who lives outside of Vancouver thinks it's peaceful here, but nobody who truly knows (or, I would venture, truly loves) the city falls for that. Class war, gang war, colonialism and its discontents; there's some core, kinetically unsettled truth about Vancouver, which is not to say the city can't change: over the course of our first century, give or take a few years, we went from anti-Asian race riots to multiracial hockey riots. Vancouverite or not, you've gotta admit that's progress. We've learned at least a few lessons from our decades of upheaval, and taught a few to the suited suits back East, to boot.

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All photos courtesy of City on Edge: A Rebellious Century of Vancouver Protests, Riots, and Strikes, published September 2017 by Greystone Books.

On November 29, 1958, Grey Cup revelers turned into rioters, smashing windows and littering the streets with a snowstorm of stuffing from pillows and mattresses thrown from nearby hotels. Photo by Eric Cable/ Province

Picketers protested racial discrimination outside the Downtowner Motel at 667 Thurlow Street on August 7, 1959, after the Vancouver Sun published a story about the eviction of a bi-racial Seattle couple. Photo by Don Timbrell/Vancouver Sun

Police raided the three-day student occupation of Simon Fraser University's administration centre on November 23, 1968, and arrested 114 who defied an ultimatum to leave. The students' concerns were university admissions, transference of credits, access to student records, and education funding. Photo by Dan Scott/Vancouver Sun

Geraldine Larkin, 20, of the Native Alliance for Red Power, picketed a meeting of the National Association of Principals and Administrators of Indian Residences at the Blue Boy Motor Hotel on March 12, 1968, to protest the effect of residential schools on First Nations culture. Photo by Ralph Bower/Vancouver Sun

Sixty housewives and their children protested the high cost of meat and groceries at the Woodward's food store at Oakridge shopping centre on June 3, 1969, the second day of food price demonstrations around Vancouver. Photo by Dan Scott/Vancouver Sun

On October 15, 1970, in what was dubbed the Battle of Jericho, police evicted squatters who, for six weeks, had occupied empty military barracks at the Jericho armed forces base. Photo by Ken Oakes/Vancouver Sun

During the Rolling Stones concert at the Pacific Coliseum on June 3, 1972, 285 police clashed with 2,000 would-be concert goers, including members of the notorious Clark Park gang, some of whom threw rocks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails. Twenty-two people were arrested and thirty-one police officers injured. Photo by Dan Scott/Vancouver Sun

Members of the Ku Klux Klan distributed pamphlets protesting communism in the 100-block Hastings Street on February 2, 1982. Photo by George Diack/Vancouver Sun

Punks for peace with signs saying "Free the Five," referring to the Squamish Five, at the 65,000-strong annual peace march on April 23,1983. Photo by David Clark/Province

Students shouting "Walkout!" swarmed out of six Vancouver secondary schools on January 24, 1985, to protest education cutbacks. Photo by John Denniston/Province

Clayoquot Sound logging protesters gathered at daybreak on July 7, 1993, at the Kennedy River Bridge in preparation for another day of confrontations with loggers and RCMP enforcing a Supreme Court injunction. Photo by Mark van Manen/Vancouver Sun

Animal rights activists presented signed petitions opposing the captivity of whales to the Vancouver Aquarium on February 11, 1992. Photo by Jon Murray/Province

The epicenter of the Stanley Cup riot on June 14, 1994, was the corner of Robson and Burrard. Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen said at the time that the incident indicated "deep social problems across the country." Photo by Steve Bosch/Vancouver Sun

A woman opposed to the upcoming 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver participated in a protest march on January 22, 2010, one of many demonstrations against the Games. Photo by Stuart Davis/PNG

A second Stanley Cup riot occurred after the Vancouver Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final against the Boston Bruins in Vancouver on June 15, 2011. Rioters smashed windows, looted businesses, and set cars on fire, including two police vehicles. Photo by Jason Payne/PNG