GSP: A Canadian Perspective
Posted by Marc Staehling on April 16th, 2008
Canadians love their sports heroes. Wayne Gretzky is pretty much worshipped as a god up here. A few years back, Gretz’ along with Don Cherry both made CBC’s top-ten list of the Greatest Canadian ever. But that’s hockey. A Canadian institution. A sport, dominated by Canadians. With other sports, the situation is a little bit different…
It’s not that we don’t celebrate all our successful athletes, because trust me, we do. When Mike Weir won the Masters in 2003, he returned home to a hero’s welcome, and Steve Nash’s sucesses have made him royalty north of the 49th. No matter how well these athletes do though, there’s always some bit of lingering doubt or worry. A unconscious Canadian mentality of thinking it’s too good to be true, and won’t last long. It’s not all that surprising considering some of the situations Canadians have dealt with in the past. Ben Johnson going from world’s fastest man, to disgrace of nation in a matter of hours. Other famous names have abandoned their Canadian roots to compete for other nations. Guys like Lennox Lewis, Greg Rusedski and Owen Hargreaves come to mind.
On to GSP. As a proud Canadian, and a die-hard MMA follower, I am a St. Pierre fan no doubt. I celebrated heartily when he beat Matt Hughes for the title at UFC 65, and went into a deep depression following his upset loss to Matt Serra at UFC 69. GSP represents the Canadian sports mentality in a nutshell. He’s humble, exciting, and arguably the best on the planet. Despite this though, there is that lingering little voice that says he doesn’t have what it takes, when he truly needs it, to succeed. Talking to Canadian MMA fans both rabid and casual alike about the upcoming supershow in Montreal, a common thread has been not “GSP is going to kick Serra’s ass!!”, but more along the lines of “God…I hope St. Pierre doesn’t lose”.
In a sport like this, just a nanogram of doubt, or indecisiveness can spell your demise, which makes the GSP situation even more nerve-wracking. “Rush” should beat Serra, but we won’t truly know until the octagon door slams shut this Saturday. God speed Georges!!!
April 16th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
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