Unfair NHL Referees throughout Series Contributed to Riot in Vancouver

A native guy in his sixties came into McDonald's restaurant at Main & Terminal at about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, where people were sitting on the stools in front of the big screen televisions waiting for Stanley Cup Game 7 to begin.  As he grabbed the last available stool, he told us, "The word is that if the officiating is unfair again tonight, people are going to riot.  That's the word."  He said it twice.  The Downtown Eastside is different than other neighbourhoods: people have more time than in other neighbourhoods and talk to one another on the street, they stand on street corners and talk.
  
I've been enjoying watching the games with this guy at Mcdonalds, because he knows hockey like nobody else I know.  He grew up in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan -- 100 miles north of Saskatoon -- where people are immersed in hockey.  He told me it's common for kids there to play on two hockey teams, one at school and one outside school.

I knew what he meant about the officiating being unfair in the Boston vs. Vancouver playoffs.  I've noticed a bias.  Even a sports reporter from Boston noted that the officiating "has favored Boston" in the finals, when he was interviewed on Tuesday by a Vancouver radio station.  I won't repeat all the examples that have been discussed on Canuck-obsessed talk radio, but when you see a penalty given for a shove at one end of the rink and five punches to Sedin's head going unnoticed at the other end of the rink, something is not right.

At the end of the first period, when the score was 1-0, the native guy turned to me and said he thought the Canucks could come back.  Early in the period, the players knew where one another was, "but by the end they seemed to be looking for each other."  He thought they would come out in the second period and function more as a team again.

When the Canucks lost, he said, "I'm gonna feel bad now for two or three days."  Then tears welled up in his eyes.

The Canucks may have let their Stanley Cup chance slip away even if the refs hadn't been handicapping them throughout the series.  Luongo after all should have stopped at least a couple of tonight's goals.  Tim Thomas was a stellar performer.  The Bruins were the better team tonight.

I've talked to several devoted hockey fans now about Brian Tuohy's book, "The Fix is In", about fixing in the NHL and other sports, and they have all said they believe it's going on.  On Tuohy's website, he publishes a quote Patrick Hruby on ESPN.com about his book,  "Tuohy makes a compelling, fact-based argument that not everything in the sports world is as it seems."  Rick, a homeless tennis player and avid recycler who is mad about hockey, told me after Monday night's game that he has no doubt there is fixing going on in hockey.

The native guy had the same response when I asked him tonight.  He pointed out that allegations of betting on hockey against Wayne Gretzky's wife and assistant coach, although no charges were laid, did nothing to inspire confidence in the integrity of the NHL.  "Do you notice they don't have him on [tv] talking about the game anymore?  They don't want nothin' to do with him.  He's tainted."

The mainstream media generally avoids discussion of suspicions of fixing.  A couple of weeks ago, CKNW's Bruce Allen, who has crafted an image as a straight talker, was guest-hosting a talk show and instantly hung up on a caller who said of the playoffs: "It's fixed."

Canucks' GM, Mike Gillis, did hint at it in a press conference in April as the Canucks battled the Chicago Blackhawks.  He pointed out that in the previous four games, Chicago had 69% more power plays than Vancouver. In the previous four games when the score had been tight, a one or two goal difference, Chicago had 100% more power plays than Vancouver.  As Gillis read a list of statistics to support his claim that there has been nowhere near "a level playing field", I suspected, "The Fix Is In".  


Gillis suggested this week that he has been muzzled.  At a press conference, when asked about the fact that there had been no penalty for Boston for the hit that broke the back of Canuck Mason Raymond, he said, 'I can't talk about.  I'll get in trouble.'

Tonight, after the Canuck's final 4-0 loss to Boston, when the first car in downtown Vancouver was turned over and burned, many of the people rocking that car until it turned over were wearing Canucks jerseys.  Although some of the rioting and looting was started by a small group of people wearing black balaclavas, fans in Canucks jerseys were quick to join them and were clearly enjoying the emotional release.  They were not all youths either.

Everybody involved "will be held accountable", the Mayor said.  But the NHL which have pumped these fans up throughout the series and then allowed refs to cheat them?  Don't expect any accountability there.

Please Don't Film your TV Commercial in Vancouver

Thinking of filming a commercial in Vancouver?  Please don't.  Make your commercial in Burnaby or New Westminster or Surrey.  Anywhere but Vancouver.

The City of Vancouver Film Office under Muriel Honey is tainted by human rights abuses.  If you do business with them, your company could end up tainted too. 

Here's an example of abuse by the Vancouver Film Office:  Despite verbal promises to a Downtown Eastside resident sickened by a generator outside her street-level window ten years ago during the filming of a Honda commercial on a hot day with little wind, staff at the Vancouver Film Office and their Manager Muriel Honey did little to ensure that she was not sickened again. After a battle that went on for years, Honey promised the poisoned resident in writing that there would be no more generators parked outside her street-level windows.   Honey said that even film trucks would not be situated there.  

Honey lied.  

Over the years, Honey has repeatedly violated the agreement that she personally put in writing.  

Last night the agreement was violated again.  The poisoned resident told me that Honey and her staff arranged for a generator to be parked outside her street-level windows until 2 a.m. while a commercial was being filmed.   "I don't care if they film a commercial," says the resident, "I just want them to respect our agreement." 

Honey didn't just ignore the agreement with the poisoned resident, she ignored the City's agreement with all residents in the vicinity: that the City notify them in advance of filming. "I didn't see any notice; usually, they're taped to the front doors",  says the resident.  She says a friend had offered to pick up some off-sale beer and meet her back at her place, but she would have told him to skip it if she'd known that they'd have to put up with fumes wafting into the apartment all night.  There are no other windows in the apartment to create a cross draft, just those facing Powell St., she explains.  

There is no point in going to Muriel Honey or her staff about last night's fumigation.  The only thing to do is take the problem to the marketplace and ensure that customers know what companies are profiting from deals with a City of Vancouver enterprise that too often relies on deception.  And that deception includes their pointing to the annual outdoor turkey dinner on the Downtown Eastside as evidence that the film industry 'gives back' to the community, while year after year fumes and agreements are ignored in the neighborhood. 

There are alternatives for any company wanting to film a commercial on a location with a century old feel to it, a feel that attracts companies to the Gastown-Downtown Eastside area. They can get that feel in New Westminster, a city older than Vancouver and one with no reputation for a corrupt film office.   

Does anybody know the name of the company that was filming a commercial in the middle of the night on Saturday, May 2-3, 2009, on Powell St. on the Downtown Eastside?  It's important that their name be published on the internet along with Muriel Honey's.  

Honey will usually get you better results than vinegar.  Not in Vancouver.

Has Jim Sinclair been Naughty or Nice?

On Christmas Eve at 5 p.m. labour unions hosted their annual Christmas dinner at the Martime Labour Hall in East Vancouver. The dinner was advertised on a poster at Carnegie Center as being for the "less fortunate", but everybody who showed up was welcomed.

The hall was full, and a special City bus repeatedly circled back to the Downtown Eastside to transport more people to the dinner.


The dinner consisted of turkey, dressing, gravy, a mixture of corn and carrots, cranberries, mashed potatoes, and a bun. People donating their Christmas Eve time to dish up food from the steam trays were warm and friendly, exuding Christmas spirit -- not a grouch among them. Volunteers were walking around the tables in the hall offering people pumpkin or apple pie for dessert, and coffee, pop or juice to drink.

A few people brought plastic containers to take an extra dinner home. The servers willingly filled them up. The first thing they ran out of was dressing.

Santa turned up too, with gifts for children. And there was live music too, although one guy eating dinner thought the singer ruined John Lennon's Christmas song. "He should give silence a chance."

There was also a clothing room with donated clothing.

The line-up into the dinner wasn't as long as last year, which according to Downtown Eastsiders was the case with other free Christmas dinners on the Downtown Eastside. That could be the reason many adults leaving the Maritime Hall after dinner were given whole pumpkin or apple pies to take home, along with the usual bag of groceries containing a couple of large potatoes, two large carrots, and a can of baked beans.


Jim Sinclair, President of the BC Federation of Labour, was there as he is every year, wearing a Santa hat. Sinclair looked thinner than last year, less paunchy. He was enthusiastically serving food from a steam tray along with union elves. (He is fourth from the left in the top photo.) He later walked around the hall and chatted up the volunteers. Sinclair didn't chat Santa up though, so he never got asked whether he's been naughty or nice. You be the judge: Evidence-tampering in CUPE police complaint