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15th June this year Vancouver Canucks lost 4-0 to Boston Bruins
in the deciding final game of the ice hockey Stanley Cup Final
in Vancouver. Afterwards, there was a serious riot in the city,
an uncomfortable echo of a similar disturbance in 1994 when the
same team lost. There are plenty of other equally serious
examples of this sort of thing in North America, thus
demonstrating, (a) mass hysterical reaction is not confined to
football, and (b) Janus-faced Americans who jeer at "soccer
hooligans" ought to take a good, long look at their own sports
culture before having a go at anyone else.   Now I have nothing
against ice hockey, grid iron, basketball or baseball. They are
unquestionably games which require genuine talent, athleticism
and organisation. And every time I viewed them in the flesh I
was fortunate enough to have family or friends explain their
more esoteric aspects. But to me they can only ever be a
spectacle of limited novelty value;