Eric's blog - Bikes, beef and berated by a barber. Weekend recap!

Thursday, I went to pick up this bad boy (Can-Am Spyder, pictured above) at Loiselle Sports in Embrun. They had planned to give me the new F3 (which has, I understand, a top speed of 150 MILES per hour) but they’ve been selling them so fast that they were completely out of stock! So I got this model, (a 2013), which has a racing stripe. And looks awesome. But doesn’t quite go as fast. Then I took some time out of an otherwise boring all-staff meeting at the building to demand Ride For Dad sponsorship for the CHEZ team. We were in 4th place, and I thought we could make it to 2nd if a few people donated! (We finished fifth as of Monday. My caustic demotivational speech may have backfired.)

Then Friday I was in Smiths Falls to be a ring announcer (along with John Chatwood of JACK-FM) for the Great North Wrestling event featuring Brutus ‘the barber’ Beefcake. I went as a favour to my college buddy Mike, who was making his ring debut as ‘Knine’. Which really should have been spelled ‘K-nine’ so I knew that the ‘k’ wasn’t silent…in the picture above, the ‘Hart Throbs’ and their manager Asana are getting ready for their match – I announced them as being ‘from Hollywood California’, but when they got on the mic, they seemed to have suspiciously French accents for someone hailing from California…I left before the Brutus match so I could get a little rest before Ride for Dad the following morning.

Already hundreds of bikes there at 7:15 in the morning, a terrific turnout in the end – about 1,600 bikes participated this year! Weather forecast be damned, they turned out. And we didn’t have a single drop of rain for the ride. Or for the poker run afterward, from Kanata to Almonte (delicious burgers!) to Clayton to the Rideau Carleton Raceway:

The final party was a little truncated, however, as the torrential rains were coming and few wanted to stick around and drive a motorcycle home in a downpour. Thanks to the confusion, at one point I had to take over for the singer of the band, who was AWOL for one song. Thankfully, that song was Louie Louie, the lyrics didn’t matter, and it was over mercifully quickly. In the end, we raised more than $300,000 this year, bringing the 15-year total up over $4 million! Truly awesome, and incredible to see all the hard work from the executive and the more than 300 volunteers it takes to make this event run every year!

I got to bring our youngest out with me too, which was very cool. He thought it was cool too, but got especially into it when Biker Betty told him that with his helmet and white rain gear, he could be a Speed Racer cosplayer.  It was a long day, but he’s a trooper!

Something interesting I noticed – we’ve been plugging Ride For Dad for a month on the air. And sending out emails to the CHEZ nation suggesting that donations would be greatly appreciated. Take this for what it’s worth, but if you’re organizing a fundraiser it may be something to consider – a breakdown of the 20 people who donated to my personal page:

6 – my family
6 – my co-workers
1 – facebook
1 – on-air
0 – email blast
6 – Twitter

Not saying this is perfectly representative, but perhaps a Twitter campaign is more important to a fundraising effort than most of us realize?

Then Saturday night it was back to the wrestling, this time at the Earl Armstrong arena. This time it was my buddy (pictured above) who took off before the main event, where I was to be the ‘guest referee’. So I spent my time wandering around asking people what a referee does in a wrestling match. (I genuinely have no idea.) Some people told me the rules. Brutus ‘the barber’ just looked at me, said ‘ughnbehidfnn’ and turned away. All he’d say was ‘make it quick, I want to get out of here’. ‘Just hurry it up’. ‘Nothing extra, just in and out I want to go’. Okay…fine – I have no idea how a ref can make a match go any quicker or slower. I actually felt quite bad for the ‘Hart Throbs’, who were to be his opponents, and The Grapecrusher, who was to be his partner. These guys were living a dream, getting to wrestle with a legend. Who clearly didn’t care about being there at all. Imagine Mick Jagger is booked to sit in with your band for a set at the local tavern – and plays tambourine on half of one song then wanders off.

By the time I was ready to ‘ref’, I knew only one thing – when Brutus puts a guy in a sleeper hold, I raise that guy’s arm three times. That means he loses, Brutus wins, the match is over. Okay, I can do that. Until the match is halfway over and Brutus lumbers into the centre of the ring to put one of the Hart Throbs in a hold – of some kind – is that a sleeper hold? I realize I have no idea what a sleeper hold actually is. The match is only two minutes in at this point. Is he really trying to end it THAT early? Whew! It turns out no – that was some other kind of hold. The match goes on – mostly between Grapecrusher and the Harts, as Brutus mugs for the crowd and waits. Finally, he’s there in the ring – and he’s got a guy in a sleeper hold! I know this. I raise the guy’s arm three times. I signal that the match is over. Job done.

Well, apparently not – next thing I know Brutus is there in my ear – ‘raise my arm, you f-ing idiot!’ I shrug and raise his arm. Sure. I guess that was a part no one told me about. Then he said ‘ugh, good help is hard to find’ – still under his breath while maintaining his smile for the crowd. Then he called me a ‘f-ing moron’. I’m paraphrasing here. I don’t really remember the exact words. I just remember his mouth half-opening and pure douche coming out.Hey, I get it – he’s tired. After all, he’s had to climb all the way over wrestling ropes on two consecutive nights. And it was incredibly hot in there. I knew that because I’d heard him complaining about it for about an hour between bouts of ignoring people or going off about Hulk Hogan. But hey – I was tired also. It had been a long day. And for a split second I considered responding – ‘sorry I missed that – did you say you wanted to fight me? Like for real? Right here in the ring right now?’ but then I considered the small children in the crowd, the lateness of the hour, and the fact that I wanted to keep my job. So I just left the ring, tossed my ref shirt to the real ref, and went home – still not knowing anything about refereeing a wrestling match.

I’d watched the other refs, but none of them seemed to announce a winner – they all got beaten up, or chased out of the ring, or (in the case of Senator Patrick Brazeau, this:)

I suspect that moment will be the one people remember most about Saturday night’s wrestling event – and not my ineptitude as a referee. Y’know, if any of them even stuck around for that after they interviewed Brazeau and skedaddled.