So along comes Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Wednesday night, where the host Vancouver Canucks were gunning for their first NHL championship ever, going against the Boston Bruins.

It didn’t work out too well for the home team, as Bruins goalkeeper Tim Thomas stood up to the Canucks’ offense for a 4-0 shutout. Lord Stanley’s trophy goes to Beantown for the first time since 1972.

So how did our friends north of the border, long known for their politeness, respond to losing the most famous trophy in North American sports?

Well, the teams lined up at center ice and shook hands, as they always do at the end of every playoff series. (If memory serves, they used to do that at the end of every game, even in the regular season. I guess we’ve outgrown that.)

And the Vancouver fans?

Well, they busted up the joint.

Fortified by mass quantities of Molson or Labatt’s or Excelsior beer, Canuck fans went on a riot. They threw junk at a large video screen set up outside Rogers Centre for fans who couldn’t get into the arena, disabling the screen before the end of the game.

With that destruction accomplished, they moved throughout the central core of downtown. Cars and trucked were overturned and burned. A “parkade” (what Canadians call a parking deck) was set on fire. Windows were broken out in numerous buildings, with looting in stores like The Hudson Bay Company, Canada’s iconic department store chain.

And for the benefit of those of us in the States, the folks at the television network CTV carried live coverage of the carnage via Web stream. Interesting viewing, to say the least.

The next morning, the press had the usual coverage, just like we’re used to seeing from places like Los Angeles, or at English soccer matches.

The local newspaper, The Vancouver Sun, was all over the story, and was linked by the Drudge Report as one of the day’s top stories — a distinction that didn’t last long, after a certain congressman from New York City decided to announce his resignation.

So at the bottom of the Sun’s main story, in the reader comments section — a section I usually avoid on Internet stories, for much the same reason that I avoid wading through toxic waste dumps — I found this gem. The person who posted it is apparently from Chicago, and wrote it in the form of lyrics to be sung to the tune of “O Canada,” their national anthem.

O Canada

You lost a hockey game

Why burn a car?

The score remains the same.

You’re supposed to be

More civilized

Than Americans can be.

We feel so strange

When you act deranged

And crazier than we

God, keep those fans

Far away from me

O Canada, you are oot of your tree

O Canada, you are oot of your treeeee….

The police chief blamed the riots on “anarchists,” which threatened to disrupt the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. It’s also the second time this has happened, after the 1994 Cup finals were lost to the New York Rangers.

Of course, we here in Alabama would never react with such vitriol to any of our teams losing to a rival or in a championship game. We’re much to civilized for that sort of thing.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Harvey Updyke is on the phone.