Hart Broken

I realize this week's column has pretty much nothing to do with DVD, but as our regular readers know, I have a tendency to write what I'm feeling at any given moment rather than what might be considered "on topic" sometimes. I think after reading what I've written below, you'll have a better understanding of where I'm coming from.

Growing up in the interior of British Columbia like I did, weekends almost invariably involved hearing the sound of Ed Whalen's voice blaring through the television at us..."In the mean time, and in between time, that's another edition of Stampede Wrestling!" Every now and then, we'd get really lucky and the Stampede Wrestling crew would be on the road and come to our small town, putting on a show for a few hundred people in the gymnasium at the high school. We all knew the matches were rigged, but anyone who's ever put their best friend's little brother in a full nelson also knows that some of their moves can be incredibly handy to a ten year old kid. Nobody can deny that these guys are great athletes and great performers.

Also each week, the Stampede Wrestling crew invariably involved some kind of match between one of the eight Hart brothers and some big galoot. The Harts had been (and still are) a staple of wrestling, ever since the great-grand-daddy of Harts, Stu Hart entered the ring so many years ago. Stu's wife always said that she never wanted her boys involved with such a barbaric sport, and that she didn't want her daughters involved with wrestlers. In typical Hart fashion, all eight boys grew up to be wrestlers, and all four girls married wrestlers. It must be in the blood. A number of years back, Stampede Wrestling (and it's stable of Harts) was bought out by Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation, and the Harts hit the big time. This was a proud time for everyone in western Canada (and especially Calgary), as the Harts were easily showing the rest of the world how it was done.

This past Sunday night, one of the greatest professional showmen of our time passed away after an accident in the ring. Owen Hart died after a fifty foot fall from a rigging which was supposed to mark a grand entrance to one of his wrestling matches.

Owen was a consummate wrestler, and a great showman, as his many fans here in Calgary and around the world are aware. When he left Stampede Wrestling and entered the WWF, he first did it as "The Blue Bomber", but was immediately recognizable to Stampede Wrestling fans as Owen Hart. He was incredibly acrobatic, and brought an incredible amount of energy to his performance each night. He wrestled because he loved to entertain people, and quite frankly, he was very good at what he did.

My wife and I were shocked to hear that he had died in the ring last night (we were visiting relatives in British Columbia, not far from where I saw some of the Harts wrestle as a kid). When we finally made it back home tonight we sat down and watched WWF RAW on TSN. Tonight's matches were played in tribute to Owen, and his contribution to sports and entertainment. Between the wrestling matches, which were kept very short, a cavalcade of wrestlers were brought on camera and asked their memories of Owen. None of these fellows were "in character" when they poured out their heartfelt memories of Owen the prankster, the joker, and the entertainer. People whose characters were at each other's throats stood side by side and said nothing but nice things about Owen. The whole thing was incredibly classy and incredibly understated. Especially when you consider that we're talking about the WWF here.

I saw Owen's brother Brett "The Hitman" Hart on the news tonight, doing an obviously difficult interview. Brett was talking about how he and Owen both agreed that wrestling was going downhill. It's become less about "sports entertainment", and more about sex and violence and everything which kid's entertainment shouldn't be. Owen's family has asked that in lieu of flowers people make a donation to the Alberta Children's Hospital. A very fitting way to make a wrestler's career mean something to kids, especially kids who could use something light and entertaining in their lives.

To put the Children's Hospital into perspective for all you readers outside Calgary, this is a hospital which has done everything it can to not be like a hospital. When you walk in, everything is geared toward having fun while still offering the necessary treatment. A few years back, our provincial government used the Children's Hospital as a pawn in a huge game of political bait and switch. They announced it would be closed due to "budget cuts", and of course a great public cry was heard across the land. This hospital has never had an easy time, and has relied more on public support than anything else to keep running over the years. I also have a personal connection to this hospital, since the staff there saved the life of one of my best friend's children only a few years ago. The poor little guy (he was only a few months old at the time) couldn't breathe, and the wonderful people there saved him.

The entire Hart family have always been great supporters of the Children's, and I must say that if anything good were to come out of this tragedy, a boatload of money for this hospital would be it.

For those of you who are wrestling fans, and who are outside Calgary, I would encourage you to make a small donation in Owen's name to: The Alberta Children's Hospital1820 Richmond Road S.W.Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2T 5C7Or to the children's hospital in your area.

I would hope that the WWF would learn the lesson from this tragedy, and install safety devices for the stunts their performers are asked to do. Certainly hind sight is 20/20, and given that their performers are essentially professional stunt men, I can see the appeal in letting them handle their own jumps and falls. What I would like to see, though, is better safety measures taken when these performers are using elaborate riggings to enter the ring. I can understand the need to enter "with a bang" as it were, but you can do that and still enter safely.

I was hoping that I would have a nice light column this week, and maybe write a little bit about Star Wars' opening weekend and what not, but sadly that isn't the case. Owen Hart's funeral will be held here in Calgary next week, and I'll probably take some time off work to stand with what will undoubtedly be thousands of fans to pay my last respects. My thoughts are with Owen's wife and two small children at this time, and I hope they can take comfort in the huge outpouring of sympathy from the public. To help lighten things up a bit now, I'll cover last week's and this week's quote.

Last week's quote was answered correctly by a fellow Calgarian, Kwasi Chan. The quote was from, of course, Jackie Chan's movie Rumble In The Bronx (or for those of us who recognized the locale, Rumble in Vancouver). I thought this tied in nicely to my comments about running into Jackie last week, and was surprised more people didn't get it.

This week, I'm going to quote a line from a movie which involves one of Jackie's co-stars in Shanghai Noon (which he's currently preparing to shoot here in Calgary).

The line is not SPOKEN by Chan's co-star, and in fact, he doesn't even appear in the scene, but it ties in nicely because of the six degrees of Jackie Chan connection, and because when I was in LA we ate at Medieval Times (I'll post a very funny picture soon).

Wench: There are no utensils in medieval times, thus, there are no utensils AT Medeival Times. Would you like a refill on that Pepsi?

In the mean time, and in between time...