Riot, protests, casino debates, Stanley Cup, Grey Cup, civic election, federal election, provincial byelection, Insite court decision, missing women's inquiry, a spate of major developments approved, high school basketball heroics-it's hard to imagine a busier news year than 2011.

Vancouverites had a lot to say about this amazing year. As with every final edition, we look back at the year that was through the words of the people-from famous to notorious to obscure- who appeared in the stories we covered in 2011.

POLITICS

[It was] a reasonable allocation of time to reflect on the risks to our planet by our collective actions and hopefully an inspiration to help modify our collective impacts while we still have time.

-COPE Coun. David Cadman on his record-breaking six-minute long chanting music video "prayer" before a council meeting April 5.

It's very, very clear that Vancouver South followed the rest of Canada in wanting a majority Conservative government.

-Vancouver South Conservative MP Wai Young, on her victory over Liberal incumbent Ujjal Dosanjh in the May 2 federal election.

It's incredible. Change is taking place. I think it is about new politics.

-Vancouver East NDP MP Libby Davies on the NDP's rise to official opposition status on the night of the May 2 federal election.

I'm sure that some of the folks here are going to say this was a squeaker. But you know what, when Henrik Sedin is holding up the Stanley Cup over his head and he's doing it on Game 7 after the third overtime, not a single one of us is going to complain that he won.

-Premier Christy Clark, during her victory speech May 11 after narrowly defeating NDP challenger David Eby in the Vancouver-Point Grey byelection.

I can't believe what we did tonight. Do you realize what we did tonight? We almost beat the premier.

-NDP Vancouver-Point Grey byelection candidate David Eby, speaking to supporters at his campaign office.

We have a very challenging agenda ahead of us. Our friends and our neighbours have given us an ambitious mandate to make our city better, greener, more compassionate, fair and more livable for everyone.

-Re-elected Mayor Gregor Robertson's Nov. 19 victory speech, noting Vision's sweep at the polls. The Visionites have such a tenacious and indescribable hold on COPE that even if a COPE person says something positive about a party other than Vision, you're excommunicated, or threatened with it.

-COPE council candidate Tim Louis on his party's relationship with Vision Vancouver.

Together, we have done everything possible to make voters aware of the issues I believed were important in this campaign. But the voters have spoken, decisively rejecting a mayoral campaign based on puerile, sophomoric, gotcha-style attacks and trivial wedge issues.

-Failed NPA council candidate Sean Bickerton expressing his disappointment with his party's election campaign.

CRIME

They're like a dog that's been kicked and kicked and kicked.

-Insp. Mike Porteous, VPD, on the abusive treatment of addicts by an alleged criminal drug organization operating out of Downtown Eastside Hotels.

Perhaps that's why we keep catching them.

-VPD Const. Lindsey Houghton on whether a jewelry store in a crowded mall with limited exits is a wise target for robbers.

They burnt the staircase to our outbuilding, which is a heritage building. Then, of course, they're stealing those recycling containers from back lanes and burning those. They could burn our school down, right? And it's the defecating and urinating everywhere-it's disgusting.

-Kerrisdale elementary and annex principal Carol Andison describing vandalism at the school, its worst ever.

CASINO

To put BCLC in charge of monitoring abusive gambling is like having the Hells Angels in charge of abusive gang activity.

-Former NPA councillor and mayoral candidate Peter Ladner during the public hearing on the casino proposal.

I don't want you to feel sorry for me because I'm a single mom and battling with cancer. I just want to continue to work and support my six-year-old daughter Samantha. -Loy Tran, an Edgewater worker, urged council to support Paragon's proposal to relocate.

The process doesn't smell right, the stadium roof leaks money and doesn't look right and enabling addiction to gambling as public policy doesn't feel right.

-Nathan Edelson, who was a senior planner at the city from 1983 to 2008, speaking at a public hearing on the casino proposal.

And at this point, I don't believe that the proposal in front of us is the right fit or meets the expectations of the citizens of Vancouver as an economic development initiative.

-Mayor Gregor Robertson, speaking at the April 19 council meeting at which council rejected the expansion of gambling in Vancouver as proposed by Paragon Gaming Inc. of Las Vegas.

HOMELESSNESS

You never know what's going to happen or where your next meal is coming from. I never wanted to live on the street and thanks to these shelters I never had to.

-Woodward's resident Mark Rossiter, describing how the city's homeless shelter program kept him off the street and gave him a lifeline back into permanent stable housing.

Station Street came and homelessness was not cured. The Coast Apartments will come and I believe homelessness will not be cured. If I'm proven wrong, I will be absolutely ecstatic. I would love to be wrong, but I've got a bad feeling that I'm not wrong.

-Mark Townsend of the PHS Community Services Society.

That housing is few and far between, and there's certainly not enough. We know the answers. We just have to invest the resources.

-Karen O'Shannacery executive director of Lookout, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year.

PEOPLE

You feed the tummy, you feed the soul.

-Sir William Macdonald elementary vice-principal Carmen Batista on the school's breakfast program for needy students.

I try to sing it as my dad would have liked it sung. He didn't have the greatest voice in the world but he always sang.

-Opera singer Mark Donnelly, on how he sings O Canada before Canucks games at Rogers Arena.

You create a challenge for yourself. You can do it. It's never too late. Bite the bullet and just do it.

-Adult education graduate Peter Wylie, 53, who graduated from the Roberts Education Centre in June and earned a Rotary bursary to Vancouver Community College.

In every town in every city, there is a guy like me. It's not just taking care of the skates, it's taking care of the people.

-Gord Tronrud, who has run the skate shop at Riley Park for the past 13 years, on the last skate at Riley Park before it closed down for good.

My pastor said it's not work any more, it's more like a vocation. I said amen, brother.

-Carmen Louie, a cashier at Donald's Market on East Hastings near Nanaimo who has memorized the names of 7,000 customers.

I live in Vancouver, the best city EVER. It is resourceful, and also very big! We also have a wood industry, a mining industry, fishing industry- what more can you want? Plus, almost everyone has a house, and the children are all very educated. Vancouver is GREAT!

-Isabella Wong, a Grade 6 student at Sir Wilfrid Laurier elementary, who was one of 309 students at the school contributing to their self-produced book about Vancouver.

SPORTS

He was so long, so tall, it was awkward.

-John Oliver Grade 11 student and star wrestler Kyle Nguyen, who lost his chance at a gold medal at the Juvenile National Wrestling Championships in Windsor, Ont. after losing his opening match to a six-foot-tall opponent. Nguyen recovered from the defeat to best his next three opponents and take bronze and is being courted by university programs.

It's really about allowing boys and kids an opportunity to play sport. Somewhere along the way, I think between the associations that's been lost a little bit.

-Richard Cohee, the athletic director at the independent school St. George's, on the debate in senior boys high school basketball over creating an additional berth for private schools in the provincial championship.

This is my support. I'm a better mom, my kids are happy and we're together. And even through I'm still living in a nightmare, I am functional and these are victories for the movement.

-Debbie Krull, team member of the Vancouver street soccer team, which represented Canada at the World Cup in Paris.

All Canucks. There's nothing else but Canucks.

-Vancouver Ticket owner Kingsley Bailey on the frenzy and record prices for tickets for the Stanley Cup series pitting the Vancouver Canucks against the Boston Bruins.

Game time is a good time to do laundry.

-Launder All Coin Laundry owner John Pereira on how his business quieted down during Canuck playoff games.

If you have a big guy sitting in front of you, you can just look up.

-Mantar Bhamdal, 15, the lead Lions flag bearer, on the half-billion renovations to B.C. Place, including a massive new Jumbotron.

BUSINESS

God hates me.

-Slickity Jim's owner Mike Zalamn joking about his restaurant being forced to close down for the second time in two years due to a fire.

It's not desperation, it's lifestyle. -Bob Rennie on offering a kayak, a car co-op membership, a year's worth of free groceries from Urban Fare and other incentives worth more than $7,500 to those who buy and move into a condo at the former Olympic Village.

It's a very hard market out there right now, too, with the bigger people going after you and taking your business. It's hard to survive out there and things we have to do doesn't always make everybody happy, right.

-Avalon CEO Gay Hahn, announcing that the longtime Vancouver-based dairy was selling its Vancouver property in favour of a newer, more modern location in Burnaby.

The whole big box and chain syndrome is what's happening and, frankly, when it comes to overvalued places like Vancouver, the large corporations are the only ones that can afford those rents.

-Graham Peat, co-owner of Videomatica, an independent video store, which closed down in Kitsilano in the summer.

Unless people start to put their money where their mouth is and their intent about buying local and supporting local businesses instead of buying online at the cheapest price or the deal of the day, then all of those local businesses are going to fail.

-Karel Carnohan, former co-owner of Kitsilano Ardea Books and Art, which closed its doors nine months after opening in a bid to fill the vacuum created by the closure of Duthie Books.

Gregor is a shareholder, but he's not involved.

-Maheb Nathoo, chief executive of Happy Planet's majority shareholder Earth's Own Food Company on the move of Happy Planet's headquarters to Burnaby this year.

THE RIOT

Those aren't our fans doing that. -Canucks general manager Mike Gillis talking to reporters June 17 in the aftermath of the June 15 Stanley Cup riot.

That was the must awful part, I'll tell you. It's emotional still for me to even think about it, seeing people throw things at my car, smash the windows, reach in and take stuff.

-Vancouverite Sarah Edmondson, describing watching video of people smash, loot and burn her car in a Richards Street parkade the night of the June 15 riot.

...the most likely explanation is the obvious, which is that people don't want other people to know that they were down there.

-David Eby, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, on the near lack of complaints lodged against police for excessive force in the June 15 Stanley Cup riot.

It means that the community is tight and united. We felt like we were very alone for about six hours that night. There was no presence of any authorities whatsoever, not any policemen until about 2: 30 in the morning- To feel this support- it's nice.

-Francesco Caligiuri, co-owner of Da Gino Ristorante Italiano, which was damaged in the June 15 Stanley Cup riot, upon receiving $2,445.60 from the Vancouver Restoration Fund set up by the Vancouver Economic Development Commission.

We feel that a riot is an offence against the community, just like breaking in and looting a store is not 200 individual acts of shoplifting going on at once, it's terrorism.

-Douglas Keefe, co-chair of the independent review of the June 15, Stanley Cup riot.

It doesn't take long to say even a percentage point contribution would have bolstered the security that was deployed that night.

-Business sports analyst and brand communications specialist Tom Mayenknecht, who estimates the Vancouver Canucks made $40 million during the playoff run and says the club should contribute some of that money toward riot costs and future events.

Win the sucker next year-win the Stanley Cup, for God's sake. And we've got the team to do it.

-Former Vancouver mayor and B.C. premier Mike Harcourt on how Vancouver can avoid a Stanley Cup riot next year.

editor@vancourier.com

Twitter: VanCourierNews