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Sunday August 5 2018 - 41st Montreal Highland Games	Other events
WrestleInMN (id 3305) was in town today and he invited me to go see the 41st Montreal Highland Games. These games represents a combination of various events including pipe bands, highland dancing, tug of war, strongman athletics competition, musket/cannon firing and medieval fights. However, most importantly, every contestants, musicians and athletes there are wearing a kilt... Yes, everybody gets to be Scottish for one day. The event is held as a fundraiser for the Douglas Foundation for mental illnesses. We showed up at around noon and used a school bus shuttle to arrive near the Douglas Hospital grounds. Near the entrance, a kind lady would take our entrance fee and attach a bracelet to our wrists while explaining in french: - "It'll be 15$ per adult. Kids 14 and under get free admission." I nudged my head towards WrestleInMN and asked the lady: - "Can we consider my friend here as a 14 years old? He's very young." - "No, I'm afraid not", she answered while smiling. - "Well, he is 14 years old.. mentally." - "That's an entirely different matter." She laughed . I later explained to WrestleInMN the English translation of our conversation. If it wasn't for the crowd around, I think he probably would have headlocked me to the ground. Meheheheheh... It's always part of my evil plan to psych up wrestling bears so they have this strong desire to destroy me. Anyway, you've guessed correctly if you figured out that our main presence at the Highland Games was primarily for the Strongman Athletics Competition. About 9 strong beefy guys were doing sack throws, hammer toss, caber runs and a handful of other strength competition to show off their... well.. strength. Here's an incomplete lineup of the competitors. From left to right, you get to see Rob Young (Orange), Owen Williams (Navy), Danny Frame (Green), Padraig Moore (Orange), Will Barron (Green). This photo is unfortunately missing four contenders. One of the commentators mentioned that Rob Young gives out big huge bearhugs... for 1$. I had my eyes set on both Padraig Moore and Danny Frame while WrestleInMN had his eyes on Will Barron. I commented out to my friend that each time Danny throws a sack or a stone, you'd see his shirt go up a bit and you get to see his belly. In contrast, Will had his t-shirt tucked down the whole time tight in his kilt. WrestleInMN mentioned that he likes his bears a bit more "refined". He asked me: - "You being a lover of bears, how come you never came to the Highland Games?" I didn't know what to answer.. I've always wanted to see these strongmen perform. I lived all my life here in Montreal and this event ran before I was even born... Yet, I've never knew or heard about it... No sense worrying about it now. It's never too late. From now on, I'll make sure I attend this on a yearly basis. I wasn't sure if cameras were allowed, so I only got my LG G4 phone to take pictures and videos. Unfortunately, this phone was definitely not meant for great pictures. The digital zoom is terrible. Of course, there were plenty of people sporting their expensive 5K worth camera with professional zoom-in lenses bigger than your arm. Had I known, I would have brought it my own Nikon to test it on the field. Meh... there's always next year. There was a heatwave going on. Both of us got sunburn, but it was well worth it. The following 40-seconds reel should summarize a few of the things that we've had the pleasure to experience throughout the day. Test We continued to walk around to admire the bagpipe marching bands, the tug of war and the medieval fights. We also listened to two country and Scottish fusion bands playing music while we gulped down haggish, lamb roast, fish and chips and lemonade. We also visited kiosks selling artisan goods, t-shirts, jewelry, weapons and more food. I just realized I bought nothing as a souvenir. The tug of war was pretty interesting. Four delegations were competing with each other with one tug of war presented each hour. The finalists were The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada and The Stingers from Concordia University. The Stingers ultimately won the war.... but it doesn't end there. The host invited children from the crowd to challenge the Stingers in a tug of war to see if they can win against the champions. Obviously, the kids won... because the Concordia Stingers were instructed to let them win. It's probably the cutest thing I've seen at this event. You should see the kids reaction: "Hey, we just won against eight beefy quarterback players of 260 lbs each! We're stronger than them!" There were musketeers trying to shoot their muskets, but they seemed to have a few mechanical problems. I was recording them for 2 minutes waiting for them to shoot. WrestleInMN eventually told me to stop recording and as soon as I pressed the stop button, the musketeers were able to fire a shot a few seconds later. Go figure. Thankfully, WrestleInMN was able to get a video of a separate cannon shot during the opening ceremony, which I included in the summary reel. The strongmen caber toss was definitely a highlight. WrestleInMN took the opportunity to explain to me his grand knowledge of this particular event. The caber toss is thrown not for power, but for precision. It needs to do a 180 degree flip and needs to fall straight forward from where it is thrown. This was my first time seeing this, so yeah, it was quite something. I get it now why many people come to these games just to see the caber toss. Around 5 pm, I started getting a headache from the heat, so we took the shuttle back and parted ways. I would have wrestled WrestleInMN, but he needs to drive back to Vermont to take care of his dog. We have decided to reschedule our match for perhaps October or November. Back home, I shudder with a bit of pain while putting Aloes on the back of my neck... it's always the one spot I always get burned from over-exposition to the sun.
Blog ID 199

Date created:	2018-08-05
Date modified:	18:21:41.776145
Revision number:	37
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