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Ken Pierce Featured Editorial
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...
Ken Pierce
Dvdken@home.com
Contributing Editor, www.dvdfuture.com
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