Up in the land of real health care and real ketchup flavoured potato chips, a few hundred dudes n’ dudettes used the Canucks’ dramatic collapse in the hockey playoffs as an excuse to rip it up in the streets, looting stores and setting cop cars afire.

Initial reports state the fracas may have been larger and more intense than the similar riots following the Canucks’ 1994 playoff defeat, but was contained more quickly.

Of course, Seattle had its own street riot in the 1990s. But ours was about petty things like global politics and trade; nothing this important.

I watched the game, and a little of the postgame riot coverage, at Teddy’s Off Roosevelt, one of Seattle’s major Canuck fan gathering spots. The crowd was noticeably belligerent  during the first period. But as the Boston Bruins expanded their lead, the Canuck contingent became more steadily morose. Drunken despair is just as futile as violent frustration, but can leave fewer cleanup bills and insurance liabilities.