A couple weeks back I was riding my Bixi bike near the Vieux-Port and noticed dozens of police cars and personnel standing on every corner. I thought something bad had happened and was going to divert, but no one seemed tense or alert. The cops were just standing around chatting. But there were a lot of them.
Something must have been going on. Celebrity event? Movie shoot? Show of force for the tourists?
I couldn’t figure it out. Then I saw a camera tripod, a table with a paper sign that said “Canada’s Strongest Man,” and a bald beefy guy in a wrestler leotard standing beside it. A small flock of gawping young persons had gathered who apparently thought Bald Beefy Leotard Guy was amaaaaazing. But the cops were not paying attention to this.
Then it got weird. The young gawping folk started lining up for Canada’s Strongest Man–or at least, the guy standing at the Strongest Man’s table–to slap them.
Yup.
They’d stand in front of him one at a time; he’d cradle their face with both hands and adjust the position of their head, then he’d wind up and smack them hard.
Then they’d jump up and down and go “AWRIGHT!!” and take a selfie with him and they were so happy about it.
Someone, please explain.
Maybe this isn’t so weird considering Québec has a history of strongmen. There’s a not-great movie about the most accomplished one ever, Louis Cyr, who set several world records and died undefeated (despite what the movie depicts–I guess a story about a guy who could push a freight car uphill and lift 500 lbs. with one finger wasn’t melodramatic enough for the network).
Cyr, aka the “Canadian Samson,” also has a monument dedicated to him here in Montréal , where he served as a policeman before he became a professional strongman. It was definitely FAFO when Cyr was in the house; he reportedly stopped a knife fight by picking up the two perps and carrying them to the police station, and then when the police said they wouldn’t hire him because he was too big and too slow, he challenged the officers to a footrace and beat most of them. He saved his earnings as a cop and after a couple years left the force and bought a tavern, to which he added a gymnasium. The rest is Québécois history.
