During the hockey game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night, the Flyers ran the above commercial, titled “Hockey Fights Cancer,” on their Jumbotron. The video features hockey players imploring fans to help them raise money and awareness in the fight against cancer. When the video ran, a number of Flyers fans booed upon seeing rival hockey players displayed in their arena, and almost immediately people starting falling all over themselves to talk about Philly fans “booing an anti-cancer ad.” Puck Daddy has a nice collection of tweets on the subject (as part of a very reasonable take on the situation), and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to see a number of people going to tired cliches, including, of course, the time Philly fans booed Santa Claus (pictured, at right).

As Uproxx’s resident Philadelphian, this crap drives me bonkers. First of all, you idiots, they were booing their hated rivals, not cancer prevention. I know it fits your narrative to shoehorn everything into the “Haha Philly fans are jerks” angle, but come on. If this happened in Buffalo or San Jose, it’s not a story. And the Santa thing. GOOD LORD, the Santa thing. Do you know when Philly fans booed Santa? 1968. Timely reference. It’s not like they just showed up at a shopping mall and started pelting the guy with ice, either. There was a backstory that actually made it somewhat understandable in context. But every time something like this happens, people trot out these lazy cliches and demonize me and my brethren for the actions of one rogue goon, or things that happened 10-20 years before most of us were born.

The whole thing makes me so angry I could wing batteries at their stupid heads.

It seems like we just can’t go a single day without hearing more bad news about the aftermath of the Stanley Cup Finals. Less than a week after the Boston Bruins defeated the Vancouver Canucks to win their first NHL Championship in 39 years, society is still crumbling around us. First, wannabe anarchists and spoiled brats destroyed the beautiful city of Vancouver under the veil of professional sports, furthering my case for mandatory sterilization of hippies and punks. If that wasn’t bad enough, even more Vancouverites took to the streets again over the weekend to vandalize trash cans by putting trash in them and they painted so much graffiti on the walls that they just look like solid colors now. It’s pretty brutal.

Then Boston decided all of that wasn’t enough. On Saturday, thousands of Bostonians gathered in the streets, as they shouted in unison to show their protest of something. I’m not sure what exactly they were rioting against, but it was so bad that they even had to bring in giant duck boats to transport people through the crowds to protect them. And a white guy was rapping. It was one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen.

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I received some strong feedback from yesterday’s gallery of the rioting in Vancouver in the wake of the Canucks’ Game 7 loss in the Stanley Cup Finals. My original intention wasn’t to blame hockey fans for the disgusting display of violence and societal breakdown, because I know that there’s a deeper reason behind this riot and others that we’ve seen over the years. It’s not about sports as much as it’s about people just being generally unhappy.

Hold on, someone just threw a brick covered in feces through my window. Ah, apparently I’m wrong and the rioting is indeed the fault of sports fans. Male sports fans with tiny penises, to be precise.

“People invest themselves, their identity, very much in the sports clubs,” explained Professor Ervin Staub, a psychologist and the founder of the program in Psychology of Peace and Violence at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “There is evidence that when a team loses, fans get a little depressed and when the team wins, they get a little high.”

Such biological effects, Staub explained, are directly linked to behaviors. Losers feel “diminished” and “powerless,” he said, and people then become tempted to “use destructive means rather than constructive means to regain one’s sense of effectiveness.” So they lash out. (Maybe the team lost, but I can bust a department store window!) (MSNBC)

To blame Vancouver’s riot solely on sports fans is lazy and unfair. This isn’t about thousands of young people being pissed off that the Canucks lost. Sure, it doesn’t help that they lost and it certainly gives people a good excuse to go out and get stupid, but this is about something so much bigger. All those people flipping cars, lighting fires, fighting each other, smashing windows and pillaging stores don’t give a crap about a hockey game. They’re pissed off at life.

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The story today should be that the Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup in 39 years. The story should be that Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, who was considered at one point to be done because of injuries and an unorthodox style, delivered one of the greatest Game 7 performances in Stanley Cup Finals history. Hell, the story should be that Boston fans are celebrating all over America today after not giving a flying pig’s poop about this franchise for years. But it’s not.

Instead, the story is about stupidity, arrogance, ignorance, and all of the other things that we detest about sports. After the Vancouver Canucks lost to the Bruins 4-0 last night at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, fans spilled into the streets and destroyed their beautiful city. While it’s not the first time that we’ve seen the fans of a major city’s sports franchise flip over cars, start fires, attack police, and loot stores, it’s still a pretty f*cked up thing to look at. I’ve been to Vancouver a few times and I consider it to be a pretty remarkable city, but looking at the images after the jump I can’t help but wonder why.

Perhaps it’s a testament to the growing tension among fans to pay an average of $2,100 to watch their team get blown out in the final game of a series that it should have won. Maybe it’s simply a case of a spoiled culture boiling over with a dangerous combination of intoxication, hormones and misdirected rage. Maybe Vancouver’s fans thought that those kids giving their lives in Egypt and Syria were just upset about their stupid hockey team losing. I don’t really know or care what the cause is. The fact is that it’s just flat out stupid. But congrats to Boston fans for a victory and for being the better people.

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Yesterday, we showed you a gallery of Vancouver boobs. Today, we come to find out that “Vancouver boobs” means something completely different. “What!? You beat us at hockey!? Well we’ll show you, come on guys let’s f*ck up our own town!” Burnsy’s going to have a bunch of “Canadians be crazy” photos up in a bit, but I wanted to give you a heads up in case every single thing we write today is about Canada’s miscreant equivalents of Kinger and Schmo.

Also, a hockey game was either won or lost, I can’t tell.

Sports

Latest: Fan Mayhem - Head on over to CTV and check out a video recap of the riots, including a guy with a faux-hawk talking about how the “young boys wanted to go downtown”. The best punishment for these heinous acts: make everyone who rioted move to that upper, barren part of Canada where all they can do for fun is ice fish and die of coldstroke. [CTV]

The Wrestling Podcast - When you’re done, be sure to check out my world podcast debut on TH’s fake fighting weekly. We talk about Japan, puffy Charlotte Hornets Starter jackets, and what you do and don’t expect upon meeting Chris Benoit. Good clean fun for the whole family! [The Wrestling Blog]

Video: ‘Moneyball’ Footage Released In All Its Brad Pittitude - Jon is better at writing little facetious one-act plays than anyone I’ve ever known. Watch the entire video to hear to Douche that Walks Like a Man from Entertainment Tonight barf about how great the movie looks. [SB Nation]

Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel for the NFL Lockout? – Or is it just a freight train comin’ their way, yayyyyy-yeah-heayahhhhh. Okay, that copy reads better if you sing it like James Hetfield. [The Smoking Section]

Not Sports

Video: Cooking Show Money Shots - Is it weird that if I could sleep with any woman in the world, it would probably be a 40-year old with a huge head and a cooking show? The food she cooks doesn’t even look good, what’s wrong with me? [Warming Glow]

Commando Reboot Has Great Script, Says Liar - I think “a great script” or “a really great script” is Hollywood code for “I agreed to do this for money but can’t say that.” I remember Sean William Scott going on talk shows talking about how he was NEVER gonna return for an American Pie 3, but American Wedding just had “such a great script”. Yeah, that script was fantastic, Sean William. [Film Drunk]

The Avengers Poster - I’m happy to say Hollywood’s first Ultimate Team-Up movie features my all-time pet peeve from comics – a character jump kicking nothing as they’re falling from a great height. What are you kicking, Black Widow? It can’t be important, Iron Man isn’t even looking at it. [Gamma Squad]

Zach Galifianakis and Fiona Apple are Friends - …and I want to go over to their house and hang out with them forever. Screw you, Tosh, “Never is a Promise” is an awesome song. Except for that last part where she goes “mmm mmm mmmmm” and almost ruins it. But awesome nonetheless! [Uproxx]

Rachel McAdams enjoys watching her beloved Canucks. I wonder where this is going.

I’m not much of a hockey fan these days, what with my beloved St. Louis Blues playing by the philosophy of rebuilding one decade at a time, but some friends of mine have told me that there is nothing more exciting in sports than Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. And since there is a Boston team involved, it can be especially fun when fans that haven’t cared about the Bruins in 20 years spill into the streets of Beantown tonight to celebrate their first Stanley Cup victory in 39 years or celebrate simply having a reason to flip cars, tear down light poles and wake up in drunk tanks with no clue where their pants are.

But everything that I have read and seen about this series has favored the Vancouver Canucks. Sure, they’re the team expected to win and they’ve certainly been impressive throughout the playoffs and regular season. Boston, on the other hand, is a huge underdog hoping to prevail much like the Dallas Mavericks just did in the NBA Finals. However, the more statistical analysis that I read and expert opinion I try to comprehend, my ultimate prediction of the Canucks winning Game 7 tonight comes down to one all-important factor – Boobs.

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