A year ago, Canadian hockey fans poured into the streets of Vancouver, ecstatic over their national team's stunning Olympic gold medal win over the United States.

Yesterday the scenes were far less jubilant. In fact they were downright ugly, as Vancouver Canucks' fans took out their anger at a Stanley Cup Finals loss to the Boston Bruins by overturning cars and lighting fires.

Call it frustration, call it stupidity, call it whatever you want. But the bottom line is that the Curse of Canada has continued, with the Canucks wilting in Game Seven and losing to the underdog Bruins.

It's now been 18 years since a Canadian team has lifted that nation's most important trophy. It's a little bit like - and I know this is a stretch - a Victorian team not winning an AFL premiership since 1993.

While Canucks fans were rioting in the streets, the best sports town in America continued its recent run of success. The Patriots ('02, '04, '05), Red Sox ('04, '07), Celtics (‘10), and now the Bruins have all reached the pinnacle of their respective leagues in the past ten years. That's an unprecedented achievement.

But back to Vancouver.

The franchise is now 0-3 in Stanley Cup finals and may have just destroyed all the good will that came with last year's Olympic gold, won so dramatically in the very arena that saw Thursday's debacle. This is a bitter pill to swallow, considering the Canucks had the NHL's best regular season record, have potential Hart Trophy (MVP) and Vezina Trophy (Best goalie) winners, and were heavily favoured to win the series.

Stanley Cup finals, however, are notoriously fickle affairs, and can turn on one play. This year's may have occurred in Game Three, when Vancouver's Aaron Rome blindsided Boston's Nathan Horton. Both players were done for the duration of the series, Horton with concussion and Rome suspended by the league.

That cheap shot woke up a sleepy Bruins team that had narrowly lost the first two games. They peppered Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo with 41 shots, eight of which found their way into the net. For some reason, Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault refused to rest Luongo, and the gold-medal winning stopper had to play every humiliating minute of the 8-1 blowout.

The Bruins then won Game Four 4-0 and went back to the West Coast full of confidence. Admittedly the Canucks fought back and actually took a 3-2 lead in the series, but the damage had been done. Not only did Boston climb back into it on their home ice, they did it by outscoring Vancouver 12-1 in Games Three and Four.

I'm not suggesting that Rome's hit was the only deciding factor. Luongo was far too unsteady at times, and the normally high-scoring Sedin twins barely lit the lamp. Vancouver's power play - effective and efficient in the regular season - was a woeful 2/29 in the Finals.

And of course, you have to give the credit to Claude Julien's Bruins for the way they played. Goalie, Tim Thomas, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the Finals, was superb, as was the defence, led by captain Zdeno Chara. And the goals came from a host of different sources: rookie Brad Marchand, the sublime Patrice Bergeron, even 43-year old Mark Recchi.

When the Bruins needed big plays, they got them. The Canucks? Well, they would have gotten better productivity from a line featuring Michelle Kwan, Brian Boitano and Cinderella from "Disney On Ice."

So it's going to be another long summer in Vancouver. Don't get me wrong, there are far worse places to spend June, July and August. But sailing, hiking and sipping lattes (or even Molson) won't ease the pain of missing out on yet another Stanley Cup.