While tens of thousands of people began making their way downtown to watch Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, top Vancouver city hall officials were fretting about Canada Post pickets.
Among hundreds of documents released Friday by the city are meeting notes from a June 15 conference call involving city manager Penny Ballem and five members of the citys management team.
Discussion regarding picket activity around Canada Post, said the document. Concern was expressed in regards to our fences and how fences might impact their picketing and how pickets might conflict with people putting up fences and cleaning afterwards.
The fan zone on Georgia Street was bordered on one side by Canada Posts main post office. Postal workers were locked out June 15 after staging rotating strikes since June 3.
The notes also said the emergency operations centre need to have a contact list for Canada Post.
Police chief Jim Chu was among the four no-shows for the conference call. Participants included Ballem, city engineer Peter Judd, human resources general manager Paul Mochrie, sanitation manager John Williams, spokeswoman Wendy Stewart and deputy city manger Sadhu Johnston.
Six hours after the conference call, an estimated 155,000 people jammed downtown to watch the championship. Before the end of the game, the city-organized fan zone was ruined by a riot.
Had the Canucks managed to beat the Boston Bruins, the team would have paraded the Stanley Cup June 17 on land and water for two hours.
Plans, also released Friday, called for the team to sail on three boats from the Plaza of Nations to Vanier Park and back into False Creek with a Vancouver Police and Coast Guard escort.
The players and the trophy were to be carried on two flatbed trucks from the Seaforth Armoury, over the Burrard Bridge to Georgia Street and east along Georgia to Beatty.
A 45-minute victory rally for season ticket holders only was planned for Rogers Arena.
The procession was to include the VPD motorcycle unit, parade command vehicle, two police cars, a media vehicle, three convertibles with coaches, four vehicles with team executives and trainers, a support SUV and two Canadian Forces jeeps. An VPD horse unit and Vancouver fire truck were listed as optional.
We all agreed to keep track of the costs for this piece of work in a separate account, as there is talk of the province (or perhaps even the Canucks) helping pay for it, said film and special events office manager Muriel Honey in a June 14 internal email.
