A mystery man photographed in an embrace with a woman on a Vancouver street while Wednesday night's hockey riots went on around them was unmasked Friday — by his mother.
The photograph made waves around the world, with many doubting that it was real. But Megan Jones of Perth told Australian news website Ninemsn that the man in question was her son, 29-year-old Scott Jones, who has been living and working in the Canadian city for six months.
"It is something he would do — that's our boy," she said. "He has always lived in his own world. He's special like that. He doesn't always connect with what [is] going on around him. I knew it was him because he doesn't have a lot of clothes with him, and he always puts on the same thing."
Scott Jones' sister, Hannah, identified the woman in the photo as Canadian Alex Thomas and said the two had been dating for a while.
Vancouver-based freelance photographer Richard Lam, who was working for Getty Images, said that he did not even realize he had taken the photo until a colleague pointed it out to him later.
"I didn't even look at it," Lam told The Vancouver Sun. "A colleague said, 'Nice photo.' Then I went back to the editing room and looked at it. My jaw dropped."
Vancouver's police chief said Thursday that close to 100 arrests were made in the riots, which left four people seriously injured following the Canucks' Game 7 Stanley Cup loss to the Boston Bruins.
Angry fans took to the streets, brawling, looting, setting fire to cars and scuffling with police, after the Bruins hoisted the Stanley Cup on Wednesday night at Rogers Arena after a 4-0 drubbing of the Canucks.
