[Article] Documentary explores riot that followed the Vancouver Canucks' Stanley Cup loss

[RWJC]

Documentary explores riot that followed the Vancouver Canucks' Stanley Cup loss

 

Filmmakers Asia Youngman and Kat Jayme talk about I'm Just Here for the Riot, their documentary about the night the Vancouver Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and the subsequent riot. The doc, which will be screened at the 42nd Vancouver International Film Festival, features interviews with Canucks players, fans and people who took part in the riots.
 

http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2268009539597
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_Just_Here_for_the_Riot
 

 

At VIFF, I'm Just Here for the Riot takes a nuanced look at the fallout of the Stanley Cup mayhem of 2011

 

Kat Jayme and Asia Youngman’s new documentary humanizes figures who met with social-media-fed vigilantism and snitching

 

BY ADRIAN MACK

 

I’m Just Here for the Riot screens on October 2 and 8 at the Vancouver Playhouse, and October 5 at the Park, as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival

 

LET HE WHO IS without sin cast the first brick.

 

This is one of the themes we find in I’m Just Here for the Riot, a new documentary by Kat Jayme and Asia Youngman about the events following the Vancouver Canucks’ seventh game loss in the 2011 Stanley Cup. The city was possessed by a kind of madness on that balmy June night, immediately seizing the attention of the global news cycle. Sociologists and half-baked media pundits will never go out of work trying to figure out why. Cascading social ills, booze, poor planning, the madness of crowds, the observer effect of new technology and priming by the media, which wouldn’t shut up about the 1994 Stanley Cup riot in the lead-up to the fateful contest—who really knows? Jayme and Youngman wisely place their focus elsewhere. As Youngman observes, this was “the most documented riot in history,” and the film certainly doesn’t skimp on the breathless footage captured that night. But the real story here is the aftermath.

 

“This was one of our goals,” says Jayme, in a call just prior to a screening in Calgary. “If you were there and you watched things unfold, it was black and white: these people were terrible and there was no leniency, empathy, or understanding of the situation at all. But if you watch the film, I hope some people are conflicted. We wanted even the harshest critics to question themselves. You know, ‘I wouldn’t have done that, but I wasn’t there that night.’”
 

"What was really heartbreaking to learn about during our research were those who are still being affected, whose lives are still being negatively impacted 10-plus years later, especially when they were just starting out..."

 

Former VPD chief Jim Chu is on hand to crystallize the mood on the day after, telling the filmmakers that “if you’re dumb enough to do something stupid because someone wants to take a video of you, then you’re dumb.” Circular logic aside, plenty of people shared the sentiment, and law and order subsequently received a lot of help from a shaken public. It was a citizen-built online database that aided the police in their subsequent arrests. In retrospect, however, the events of 2011 were like a test platform for the worst aspects of social media: vigilantism, tribalism, snitching, mobbing, groupthink, contagion. A mirror image of what happened in the streets, ironically enough. Twelve years later, where are we?

 

“I think it’s gotten way worse,” says Youngman, joining Jayme in the call. “Way worse. I think this is just an early example of what was to come and what is currently happening. It’s like there’s a new villain every day, there’s a new person that we’re all trying to cancel, until there’s another news story and we all forget who we’re trying to destroy. And I think there’s this disconnect when we’re going on our computers and our phones and writing things about a person we don’t know, or speculating based on a photo, or what somebody else has said about them. It’s so common now and it seems like people don’t stop to think about who this person is, or the backstory, or their life experiences leading up to that point, or what they’re going through.”

 

This ground was ably covered in the 2015 book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by journalist Jon Ronson, who invited the filmmakers to New York for his contribution to the doc. In the mimetic theory of Rene Girard, scapegoating on a societal level is ritualistic, and Jayme notes that history reveals a pattern of public shaming followed by remorse, until the cycle repeats. In the case of the 2011 riot, significantly, shaming gave way to criminal sentences.

 

“A lot of them were really young people, and they made a mistake,” says Youngman, who was 19 at the time, was downtown right before things blew up, and openly wonders what could have happened if she wasn’t whisked home by friends. “Do they deserve to have their whole life ruined for taking a hockey stick and hitting something, or taking a water bottle from a drug store? Sure, it’s not great, but there are worse things that can happen in the world and I certainly did some dumb things when I was younger. They just weren’t documented and posted online.”

The film’s great achievement is in humanizing figures who were presented to and eagerly received by the public as piñatas.

 

For some, like Mallory Newton, whose brief moment of infamy lends the film its title, the crime was simply being there for a snapshot that went viral. (Not only that: it was also doctored by mainstream news outlets.) The case of Alex Prochazka, meanwhile, introduces all sorts of subtleties to the picture. A contrite and soft-spoken figure, Prochazka was a 20-year-old mountain biker whose professional future vanished along with his sponsorship deals thanks, again, to a single image. Doing nothing out of character, the extraordinary experience of Alex Prochazka is that he was both rewarded and punished in a single lifetime for being an adrenaline junkie.

 

“There was a part of our interview with his mom that we didn’t include in the film, and she talks about that,” says Jayme. “She wasn’t excusing it, but she said Alex’s job is to fly through the air on a bike. That’s who he is.” In the end, viewers should be impressed that the filmmakers persuaded anyone to appear on camera. Jayme, in fact, was fresh out of film school when she took a camcorder downtown on July 12, 2011, hoping to capture a little history as it unfolded. “Nobody wanted to talk about it,” she says. Reviving a “dream project” as a fully-fledged filmmaker 10 years later with a new friend and collaborator, Jayme discovered that sensitivities haven’t abated. 
 

“We had to build trust,” she says. “I give all of them credit because it was a very brave thing for them to come forward. What was really heartbreaking to learn about during our research were those who are still being affected, whose lives are still being negatively impacted 10-plus years later, especially when they were just starting out, had just graduated high school, or were at the start of their university careers. And again, Asia and I didn’t want to deflect and not hold these people accountable, but it was sad to learn that it was still affecting them, still having an affect on their lives and their career choices. That’s really shitty.” 

 

 

https://www.createastir.ca/articles/im-just-here-for-the-riot-viff-2023
 

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by RWJC

[Steamer4GM]

Been looking forward to seeing this.

[Steamer4GM]

Not crazy about what I'm sensing from the write up though.

 

Last think I wanna watch is a bunch of justification and excuse-making for those who committed crimes that night. Still feel the same about that shit today as I did back then.

 

And I don't feel that 'snitching' on those who break real laws is the least bit a negative aspect of our current tech culture. Canceling media figures for long ago mistakes or expressing opinions sucks but when, for instance, a guy in Whitehorse pulls 5+ consecutive dine and dashes on local restaraunts, steals cars, rips off strangers and gets publicly shamed and blacklisted as a result, Bravo social media I say!

 

So, yeah, as much as I was looking forward to this, I'm now a bit on the fence as to whether or not I'm gonna walk away with much of a positive attitude towards the filmmakers if they're just seeking to humanize those who brought historic shame to our city, franchise and fan base while making us feel bad cuz they're still paying the price for their stupidity

[Nucker67]

This is depressing. No interest in seeing this, but I probably will because I love the Canucks. Damn you Asia and Kat. 

[gwarrior]

I remember that night. And I remember saying to my mom, "win or lose, there will be a riot". Then I sat in my living room, and watched it all unfold. It was like nobody learned ANYTHING from '94.

[RWJC]

I’m interested in watching it despite the write up because I was “trapped” in the riot for most of the night. Obviously didn’t partake in the vandalism/violence but was completely in shock by what was happening around me.

 

I remember walking down to the glass to watch the Bruins celebrating, seeing Glenn Healy behind the bench gloating and directly giving him the finger to his face as he turned around smiling as his eyes scanned the fans. 
(not my proudest moment but fuck Glenn Healy because he’s a biased bitch).

 

anyway, after witnessing the horror that was, made my way out of the arena and within 3 minutes walking seeing a tear gas grenade go off about 200m away amongst a group of people. Then another. Then the police arriving in phases and trying to section and pressure people out of the area. Then it just turned to shit. 
 

If I can find my photos from inside the event I’ll post here. Cars on fire. Smoke and gas and riot police. Was totally unreal. 

[PeteyBOI]

i just want to watch the dang thing, its been nearly a year since it finished production.. i didnt know there was only going to be a one day streaming event. apparently 30 for 30 release these sometimes years after they are made...

[Jeremy Hronek]

2 hours ago, RWJC said:

Documentary explores riot that followed the Vancouver Canucks' Stanley Cup loss

 

Filmmakers Asia Youngman and Kat Jayme talk about I'm Just Here for the Riot, their documentary about the night the Vancouver Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and the subsequent riot. The doc, which will be screened at the 42nd Vancouver International Film Festival, features interviews with Canucks players, fans and people who took part in the riots.
 

http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2268009539597
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_Just_Here_for_the_Riot
 

 

At VIFF, I'm Just Here for the Riot takes a nuanced look at the fallout of the Stanley Cup mayhem of 2011

 

Kat Jayme and Asia Youngman’s new documentary humanizes figures who met with social-media-fed vigilantism and snitching

 

BY ADRIAN MACK

 

I’m Just Here for the Riot screens on October 2 and 8 at the Vancouver Playhouse, and October 5 at the Park, as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival

 

LET HE WHO IS without sin cast the first brick.

 

This is one of the themes we find in I’m Just Here for the Riot, a new documentary by Kat Jayme and Asia Youngman about the events following the Vancouver Canucks’ seventh game loss in the 2011 Stanley Cup. The city was possessed by a kind of madness on that balmy June night, immediately seizing the attention of the global news cycle. Sociologists and half-baked media pundits will never go out of work trying to figure out why. Cascading social ills, booze, poor planning, the madness of crowds, the observer effect of new technology and priming by the media, which wouldn’t shut up about the 1994 Stanley Cup riot in the lead-up to the fateful contest—who really knows? Jayme and Youngman wisely place their focus elsewhere. As Youngman observes, this was “the most documented riot in history,” and the film certainly doesn’t skimp on the breathless footage captured that night. But the real story here is the aftermath.

 

“This was one of our goals,” says Jayme, in a call just prior to a screening in Calgary. “If you were there and you watched things unfold, it was black and white: these people were terrible and there was no leniency, empathy, or understanding of the situation at all. But if you watch the film, I hope some people are conflicted. We wanted even the harshest critics to question themselves. You know, ‘I wouldn’t have done that, but I wasn’t there that night.’”
 

"What was really heartbreaking to learn about during our research were those who are still being affected, whose lives are still being negatively impacted 10-plus years later, especially when they were just starting out..."

 

Former VPD chief Jim Chu is on hand to crystallize the mood on the day after, telling the filmmakers that “if you’re dumb enough to do something stupid because someone wants to take a video of you, then you’re dumb.” Circular logic aside, plenty of people shared the sentiment, and law and order subsequently received a lot of help from a shaken public. It was a citizen-built online database that aided the police in their subsequent arrests. In retrospect, however, the events of 2011 were like a test platform for the worst aspects of social media: vigilantism, tribalism, snitching, mobbing, groupthink, contagion. A mirror image of what happened in the streets, ironically enough. Twelve years later, where are we?

 

“I think it’s gotten way worse,” says Youngman, joining Jayme in the call. “Way worse. I think this is just an early example of what was to come and what is currently happening. It’s like there’s a new villain every day, there’s a new person that we’re all trying to cancel, until there’s another news story and we all forget who we’re trying to destroy. And I think there’s this disconnect when we’re going on our computers and our phones and writing things about a person we don’t know, or speculating based on a photo, or what somebody else has said about them. It’s so common now and it seems like people don’t stop to think about who this person is, or the backstory, or their life experiences leading up to that point, or what they’re going through.”

 

This ground was ably covered in the 2015 book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by journalist Jon Ronson, who invited the filmmakers to New York for his contribution to the doc. In the mimetic theory of Rene Girard, scapegoating on a societal level is ritualistic, and Jayme notes that history reveals a pattern of public shaming followed by remorse, until the cycle repeats. In the case of the 2011 riot, significantly, shaming gave way to criminal sentences.

 

“A lot of them were really young people, and they made a mistake,” says Youngman, who was 19 at the time, was downtown right before things blew up, and openly wonders what could have happened if she wasn’t whisked home by friends. “Do they deserve to have their whole life ruined for taking a hockey stick and hitting something, or taking a water bottle from a drug store? Sure, it’s not great, but there are worse things that can happen in the world and I certainly did some dumb things when I was younger. They just weren’t documented and posted online.”

The film’s great achievement is in humanizing figures who were presented to and eagerly received by the public as piñatas.

 

For some, like Mallory Newton, whose brief moment of infamy lends the film its title, the crime was simply being there for a snapshot that went viral. (Not only that: it was also doctored by mainstream news outlets.) The case of Alex Prochazka, meanwhile, introduces all sorts of subtleties to the picture. A contrite and soft-spoken figure, Prochazka was a 20-year-old mountain biker whose professional future vanished along with his sponsorship deals thanks, again, to a single image. Doing nothing out of character, the extraordinary experience of Alex Prochazka is that he was both rewarded and punished in a single lifetime for being an adrenaline junkie.

 

“There was a part of our interview with his mom that we didn’t include in the film, and she talks about that,” says Jayme. “She wasn’t excusing it, but she said Alex’s job is to fly through the air on a bike. That’s who he is.” In the end, viewers should be impressed that the filmmakers persuaded anyone to appear on camera. Jayme, in fact, was fresh out of film school when she took a camcorder downtown on July 12, 2011, hoping to capture a little history as it unfolded. “Nobody wanted to talk about it,” she says. Reviving a “dream project” as a fully-fledged filmmaker 10 years later with a new friend and collaborator, Jayme discovered that sensitivities haven’t abated. 
 

“We had to build trust,” she says. “I give all of them credit because it was a very brave thing for them to come forward. What was really heartbreaking to learn about during our research were those who are still being affected, whose lives are still being negatively impacted 10-plus years later, especially when they were just starting out, had just graduated high school, or were at the start of their university careers. And again, Asia and I didn’t want to deflect and not hold these people accountable, but it was sad to learn that it was still affecting them, still having an affect on their lives and their career choices. That’s really shitty.” 

 

 

https://www.createastir.ca/articles/im-just-here-for-the-riot-viff-2023
 

 

 

Anyone that took part in that riot should have been executed on grounds of treason.  It's that simple.  

[RWJC]

1 minute ago, Jeremy Hronek said:

 

Anyone that took part in that riot should have been executed on grounds of treason.  It's that simple.  

Problem is quite a few weren’t local. In fact IIRC there were quite a few who came up from Washington State with the intention of causing shit

[Jeremy Hronek]

4 minutes ago, RWJC said:

Problem is quite a few weren’t local. In fact IIRC there were quite a few who came up from Washington State with the intention of causing shit

 

They should have been executed as well.  

[Roberts]

Finally someone talks about this! I have been waiting since the day of the riot for someone to bring this up!

 

[Joshua.Guy]

4 hours ago, RWJC said:

Documentary explores riot that followed the Vancouver Canucks' Stanley Cup loss

 

Filmmakers Asia Youngman and Kat Jayme talk about I'm Just Here for the Riot, their documentary about the night the Vancouver Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and the subsequent riot. The doc, which will be screened at the 42nd Vancouver International Film Festival, features interviews with Canucks players, fans and people who took part in the riots.
 

http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2268009539597
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_Just_Here_for_the_Riot
 

 

At VIFF, I'm Just Here for the Riot takes a nuanced look at the fallout of the Stanley Cup mayhem of 2011

 

Kat Jayme and Asia Youngman’s new documentary humanizes figures who met with social-media-fed vigilantism and snitching

 

BY ADRIAN MACK

 

I’m Just Here for the Riot screens on October 2 and 8 at the Vancouver Playhouse, and October 5 at the Park, as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival

 

LET HE WHO IS without sin cast the first brick.

 

This is one of the themes we find in I’m Just Here for the Riot, a new documentary by Kat Jayme and Asia Youngman about the events following the Vancouver Canucks’ seventh game loss in the 2011 Stanley Cup. The city was possessed by a kind of madness on that balmy June night, immediately seizing the attention of the global news cycle. Sociologists and half-baked media pundits will never go out of work trying to figure out why. Cascading social ills, booze, poor planning, the madness of crowds, the observer effect of new technology and priming by the media, which wouldn’t shut up about the 1994 Stanley Cup riot in the lead-up to the fateful contest—who really knows? Jayme and Youngman wisely place their focus elsewhere. As Youngman observes, this was “the most documented riot in history,” and the film certainly doesn’t skimp on the breathless footage captured that night. But the real story here is the aftermath.

 

“This was one of our goals,” says Jayme, in a call just prior to a screening in Calgary. “If you were there and you watched things unfold, it was black and white: these people were terrible and there was no leniency, empathy, or understanding of the situation at all. But if you watch the film, I hope some people are conflicted. We wanted even the harshest critics to question themselves. You know, ‘I wouldn’t have done that, but I wasn’t there that night.’”
 

"What was really heartbreaking to learn about during our research were those who are still being affected, whose lives are still being negatively impacted 10-plus years later, especially when they were just starting out..."

 

Former VPD chief Jim Chu is on hand to crystallize the mood on the day after, telling the filmmakers that “if you’re dumb enough to do something stupid because someone wants to take a video of you, then you’re dumb.” Circular logic aside, plenty of people shared the sentiment, and law and order subsequently received a lot of help from a shaken public. It was a citizen-built online database that aided the police in their subsequent arrests. In retrospect, however, the events of 2011 were like a test platform for the worst aspects of social media: vigilantism, tribalism, snitching, mobbing, groupthink, contagion. A mirror image of what happened in the streets, ironically enough. Twelve years later, where are we?

 

“I think it’s gotten way worse,” says Youngman, joining Jayme in the call. “Way worse. I think this is just an early example of what was to come and what is currently happening. It’s like there’s a new villain every day, there’s a new person that we’re all trying to cancel, until there’s another news story and we all forget who we’re trying to destroy. And I think there’s this disconnect when we’re going on our computers and our phones and writing things about a person we don’t know, or speculating based on a photo, or what somebody else has said about them. It’s so common now and it seems like people don’t stop to think about who this person is, or the backstory, or their life experiences leading up to that point, or what they’re going through.”

 

This ground was ably covered in the 2015 book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by journalist Jon Ronson, who invited the filmmakers to New York for his contribution to the doc. In the mimetic theory of Rene Girard, scapegoating on a societal level is ritualistic, and Jayme notes that history reveals a pattern of public shaming followed by remorse, until the cycle repeats. In the case of the 2011 riot, significantly, shaming gave way to criminal sentences.

 

“A lot of them were really young people, and they made a mistake,” says Youngman, who was 19 at the time, was downtown right before things blew up, and openly wonders what could have happened if she wasn’t whisked home by friends. “Do they deserve to have their whole life ruined for taking a hockey stick and hitting something, or taking a water bottle from a drug store? Sure, it’s not great, but there are worse things that can happen in the world and I certainly did some dumb things when I was younger. They just weren’t documented and posted online.”

The film’s great achievement is in humanizing figures who were presented to and eagerly received by the public as piñatas.

 

For some, like Mallory Newton, whose brief moment of infamy lends the film its title, the crime was simply being there for a snapshot that went viral. (Not only that: it was also doctored by mainstream news outlets.) The case of Alex Prochazka, meanwhile, introduces all sorts of subtleties to the picture. A contrite and soft-spoken figure, Prochazka was a 20-year-old mountain biker whose professional future vanished along with his sponsorship deals thanks, again, to a single image. Doing nothing out of character, the extraordinary experience of Alex Prochazka is that he was both rewarded and punished in a single lifetime for being an adrenaline junkie.

 

“There was a part of our interview with his mom that we didn’t include in the film, and she talks about that,” says Jayme. “She wasn’t excusing it, but she said Alex’s job is to fly through the air on a bike. That’s who he is.” In the end, viewers should be impressed that the filmmakers persuaded anyone to appear on camera. Jayme, in fact, was fresh out of film school when she took a camcorder downtown on July 12, 2011, hoping to capture a little history as it unfolded. “Nobody wanted to talk about it,” she says. Reviving a “dream project” as a fully-fledged filmmaker 10 years later with a new friend and collaborator, Jayme discovered that sensitivities haven’t abated. 
 

“We had to build trust,” she says. “I give all of them credit because it was a very brave thing for them to come forward. What was really heartbreaking to learn about during our research were those who are still being affected, whose lives are still being negatively impacted 10-plus years later, especially when they were just starting out, had just graduated high school, or were at the start of their university careers. And again, Asia and I didn’t want to deflect and not hold these people accountable, but it was sad to learn that it was still affecting them, still having an affect on their lives and their career choices. That’s really shitty.” 

 

 

https://www.createastir.ca/articles/im-just-here-for-the-riot-viff-2023
 

 

I'm not a Vancouverite so it's all second hand embarrassment. I don't think I want to cringe my way through this.

[Canuck You]

She said we were up 3-1 in the series, She was def there for the riot.

[Jeremy Hronek]

7 hours ago, gwarrior said:

I remember that night. And I remember saying to my mom, "win or lose, there will be a riot". Then I sat in my living room, and watched it all unfold. It was like nobody learned ANYTHING from '94.

 

Why would anyone learn from 1994? Relative to most other countries, people in Canada do not respect the police or the military guard because they know that in all/ most instances, the police will act timidly.  Police are also under-staffed in Canada.  

[Jeremy Hronek]

"the initial 2004 riots"

 

"the Canucks were up 3-1 in the series?"

 

These people (and the anchor) need to get their facts straight,  

[Diamonds]

10 hours ago, Jeremy Hronek said:

"the initial 2004 riots"

 

"the Canucks were up 3-1 in the series?"

 

These people (and the anchor) need to get their facts straight,  

Or saying July 11th when it was June 15th...

 

But also if people are going to go through that much effort to document the riot I hope they at least talk about the massive cleanup effort that happened the next morning. 

[cripplereh]

Been there done that no need to watch.

 

Lucky I was far away but almost went downtown.

 

Made the right decision not to.

[HIWATT]

What's next, a documentary about Mark Messiers time as captain of the Canucks?

Because we all wanna hear about all of that again too. 

[Alflives]

Not a riot. It was a protest. It was a civil rights action. 

[Snoop Hogg]

20 hours ago, Jeremy Hronek said:

 

Why would anyone learn from 1994? Relative to most other countries, people in Canada do not respect the police or the military guard because they know that in all/ most instances, the police will act timidly.  Police are also under-staffed in Canada.  

There’s something wrong with your medulla oblongata.

[Jeremy Hronek]

3 hours ago, HIWATT said:

What's next, a documentary about Mark Messiers time as captain of the Canucks?

Because we all wanna hear about all of that again too. 

 

Agreed - although I'd be interested to hear Linden's perspective about how that whole thing went down and what was actually happening in the locker room at that time.  

 

Would also be interested to hear about Linden's perspective on the alleged power struggle between him, Benning, and the Aqua's.  

[wai_lai416]

we are still talking about something that happened more than 10 years ago?? might as well talk about the 94 riot while we are at it. i'm not old enough for the cup final before 94 did we riot there too?? let's talk about that too

[RWJC]

 

[puckstopper]

On 9/30/2023 at 1:32 AM, Jeremy Hronek said:

 

Agreed - although I'd be interested to hear Linden's perspective about how that whole thing went down and what was actually happening in the locker room at that time.  

 

Would also be interested to hear about Linden's perspective on the alleged power struggle between him, Benning, and the Aqua's.  

 

During the messier fiasco......Trever was to busy holding the back the Algonquin Assassin from beating the stuffing

out of Keenan and Messier me thinks!

[Hairy Kneel]

One of those directors also did the downfall of the Grizzlies. I think she's addicted to the negative spin on Vancouver sports. Probably not the sports bar type. She made this too:

"The Grizzlie Truth", which examines the history of the ill-fated Vancouver Grizzlies of the NBA.

Media click bait stuff.

Probably a huge chunk on 'the kiss' chick's dig that stuff.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 6, 2023 by Hairy Kneel