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An Edmonton bar operator says he doesn’t expect the same kind of drunken destruction during the upcoming Oilers playoff run that marred post-season celebrations on Whyte Avenue 11 years ago.

“That had nothing to do with hockey. It had to do with people that were taking advantage of the energy and the crowds. I call them anarchists,” Chris DeCock, president of Hudsons Canada’s Pub, said Wednesday.

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“They took a situation that was lots of fun and turned it negative.”

Police said they lost control of Whyte Avenue three or four times during the Oilers march to the seventh game of the 2006 Stanley Cup final. Police arrested 860 people and laid about 50 criminal charges.

More than 30,000 people packed the area on the night the team clinched a spot in the final. As the night wore on, people broke shop windows, pushed over phone booths, kicked in windows and set bonfires in the street.

On another night, hollering fans pelted officers with bottles, pitched a billiard ball through the windshield of a police truck and smashed a bus shelter.