Stamps fan beaten up in Vancouver
http://www.calgarysun.com/2011/11/26...p-in-vancouver
For a couple Calgary Stampeders fans, their traditional trip to the Grey Cup is tarnished after one was beaten up in Vancouver for wearing his favourite team’s jersey.
Jim MacNeil had headed to the B.C. city for the Grey Cup game and to visit a friend who moved there when the two found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He and his friend had just left a bar in the busy Gastown district of the city about 2:30 a.m. Saturday where they had been enjoying the night with other friends from Calgary when they were confronted by four men dressed in dark clothing who seemed to just want to pick a fight.
“We were looking for a cab and walking down the street and four guys walked past,” MacNeil said, adding he was wearing a Stamps jacket while his friend had on the team’s jersey.
“One said something to (my friend) about his jersey.”
When his friend turned around, the man said “you don’t turn to look at me”, he said.
“And that was it — the guy came at him,” he said.
The man began punching and hitting his friend before kicking him in the head once he fell to the ground.
His friend suffered two black eyes and a welt on his head and a broken tooth, while MacNeil was uninjured.
“I picked him up off the ground and we started walking, we walked a block and one guy followed us up the street,” he said.
“They said, ‘I called some homies, you guys are going to be in s---.’ ”
MacNeil said he was shocked at the unprovoked attack.
“I was appalled,” he said.
“They weren’t drunk — I think they were just out for a vengeful night.”
Aside from his injuries, his friend has been left with confusion about the ordeal.
“He kept saying ‘What did I do, what did I do?’ and I said ‘Nothing,’ ” he said.
“It’s just one of those things we were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
MacNeil said he doesn’t think much of Vancouver hospitality after what happened.
“It’s my 15th Grey Cup in a row,” he said.
“We always wear our Stamps jerseys and cowboy hats.”
His friend has called police about the incident and required a trip to the hospital to get checked out.
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