I'm Just Here for the Riot

There's absolutely no reason to have made this. There are so many terrific stories that can be told on 30 for 30. But of course, ESPN decides to green light a garbage documentary about some garbage behavior after a hockey game. It's about social media it's not about hockey. There's a lot of people in this documentary who are just whining that they were caught rioting on camera, and that they had to deal with the consequences. I know that one of the directors says that this is about the social media riot. But what are we doing? People watch 30 for 30 for stories like the 86 Mets and the myths surrounding Bo Jackson. Not non-athletes who were shamed for publicly.

This one hits like a molotov cocktail of truth, chaos, and uncomfortable reflection. "I'm Just Here for the Riot" isn't just a sports documentary - it's a psychological autopsy of a city, a generation, and a moment in time when everything went sideways. A 10 out of 10, and a must-watch for anyone who thinks they'd "never be that person in the crowd."

The Setup: Vancouver, 2011

The setting is Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals. Vancouver vs. Boston. A whole city - hungry, tense, electric - is on the edge of triumph or heartbreak. And when the Canucks lose, the heartbreak turns to fury, and that fury sets downtown Vancouver ablaze.

Cars flipped. Storefronts smashed. People in Canucks jerseys lighting fires, looting, posing for selfies in front of destruction. And just like that, the city of "peaceful protests" and "nature lovers" becomes a global headline for all the wrong reasons.

What the Doc Nails: A Mirror to Us All

What makes I'm Just Here for the Riot brilliant is its refusal to paint things in black and white. Yes, it shows you the chaos. But it also digs into the "why." Why do ordinary people become unrecognizable in a mob?

Why did so many take selfies in front of burning cop cars and post them like trophies?

Why did people who thought they were just going downtown to watch the game end up with criminal records and lives shattered?

And perhaps the most chilling question: Could this happen in any city, on any night, if the conditions are just right?

The answer isn't comfortable - and that's the point.

Cancel Culture Before It Had a Name

The film also explores what happened after. This wasn't just a riot - it was a social media execution zone. People got doxxed, fired, harassed, and in some cases, driven to the brink for being seen in the wrong photo, wearing the wrong hoodie.

There's no question many participants needed to be held accountable. But the way the public responded? It became its own form of mob - this time, digital.

The documentary doesn't shy away from the duality of justice and vengeance.

Final Verdict:

10 out of 10.

This is one of the most soul-searching sports-adjacent documentaries of the decade. You come for the footage, the wild stories, the outrage. But you stay for the gut-check - the uncomfortable realization that mob mentality doesn't wear a jersey. It wears your face, your phone, your friend's face in a crowd.

A sobering, unforgettable documentary.

And whether you're from Vancouver or not, you'll walk away asking yourself: What would I have done that night?

And even scarier... What would I have posted?

The underlying message that came at the end of this documentary was essentially "Did you ever do anything wrong?" It's a good question to say the least, for no person is ever living in a glass house. But it was the way the question was kind of asked that seemed rather gross. Yes, I have done bad things, but participating in a riot isn't one of them.

In all honesty, I don't get the angle of this documentary. While the directors clearly state what they wanted to convey, that we as a society need to treat social media as a potentially revealing tool, it's hard to see that from those that participated. If anything, there is a documentary subject in this film, but the Canucks riot should have only been a piece of the puzzle, not the only angle. I think this could have been a tremendous look at how technology has allowed us to see thousands of angles at once, possibly starting with 9/11 as a jumping off point (since I am American). It would have revelatory to think that 13 years ago this happened, and now we have people claiming everything is a false flag with crisis actors, even with the technology in front of us pointing out the obvious.

One thing is for certain, that typical Canadian smugness many don't talk about was in full force, especially from the so-called good guys. It was a strange juxtaposition against the weirdly remorseful but "remorseful I got caught people" who were interviewed. Unfortunately, such is the state of social media. It is the new mob, and it is more powerful than most can believe. We are truly never responsible for what we do.

Also, go Kraken!

Was really put off by the lack of accountability by some of the rioters, who when interviewed stated "that really wasn't me", "I'm a different person now", and famously "Have you ever done anything wrong".

It does, however, illustrate the current climate of lack of accountability and responsibility of society at large. If you lose all your sponsorship as a pro-athlete because of your participation in a riot, it's your fault, not your youth's fault. There is no bigger turn off than excuses and rationalizations for behavior exhibited in this terrible event. Also, I fault the producers for equivocating the behavior of people on social media with that of the rioters. While I disagree with the extreme responses and ruthless harassment, in the end it was just postings and words with no physical attacks on the outed participants.

Kudos to the city of Vancouver for coming together in the wake of the riot to clean up and moving forward in a positive way. That's the Vancouver I know and love.

Finally, they showed a rioter ramming a porta toilet and someone taking a bad fall from the top of it as a result. They later mention someone critically injured in a fall. Was it the same individual? How well did the critically injured person recover? How about the famous photo of the couple kissing in the midst of the riot? Lots of humanization opportunities missed by this doc, and too sympathetic to the participants in my overall estimation.

The documentary shows impressive footage (a considerable share of it was proudly shot in smartphones by the troublemakers themselves) of the bizarre riots after the 4-0 defeat of Vancouver Canucks to Boston Bruins in the last decision match of NHL Stanley Cup. Besides the massive destruction in Vancouver town itself, scenes show that people got seriously hurt (but filmmakers seem to be more concerned about the destroyed showcases and cars) in violent ecstatic frenzy that resembles hooliganism and is very far from the world widespread conventional wisdom about orderly Canadians. The emphasis on the publishing of pictures in Internet and the identification of the offenders, followed by the rise of cancel culture blaming the ice hockey hooligans and the cooperative website police used to investigate and arrest them, is a very bad choice in the documentary in my opinion. Testimonies and interviews are mostly bad. I think the script ended up to be shallow. It is also terrible that only after one hour they decided to mention that another riot in a similar situation happened in Vancouver in 1994. There was the potential to make a much more interesting film about that crazy stupid day. By the way, for a foreigner it is interesting to notice the remarkable presence of Chinese population in Vancouver, on of the greatest outside of China (in 1992 it was the second only to San Francisco).