sakic wouldn't do the same

My right knee would never survive Japan. I realized that if I wanted to feed my family, I needed to
heal and fast: I’d have to take steroids. This was one of the most difficult decisions I ever made. I
called Tom, and within minutes he showed up at my house armed with two loaded needles, one for
each butt cheek. Later on that night I lay shivering in a fever, running to the bathroom with diarrhea
and vomiting. It turned out the steroids were from a veterinarian and were meant for horses. Tom
got sick too.

The sponsors of the five-show tour were wealthy Arabs. One afternoon they took me, Owen and
Davey out on a fishing boat, and Davey hooked a three-foot yellow shark. An epic tug-of-war went
on for about an hour, like something out of Hemingway, with Davey holding on, drenched in sweat,
the veins popping in his arms. When he finally reeled it in, it still had a lot of fight left as it flipped all
over the deck. Davey was so impressed with its inexhaustible will to live he insisted it be set free.

s I walked past the marble and bronze statues of Le Jardin des Fontaines Pétrifiantes, I was
remembering our first night, in London. The televised special went well enough. After all, England
had its wrestling fans, and it was a rarity for them to see the likes of Hulk and André: We were just
beginning to get over big in the U.K. I couldn’t help but see a glimpse of the future and the past
when Rollerball Rocco and a bunch of the English boys dropped their bags in the dressing room. Pat
had hired them to work the opening dark match. Rollerball’s Black Tiger gimmick had long since died
in Japan, and now he and the other lads toiled endlessly for a few quid, crisscrossing the U.K. riding
four to a car. In the WWF dressing room they wore envious expressions that reminded me of pack
horses who suddenly found themselves corralled with groomed Clydesdales.The Brits were
awestruck as André lumbered past. To them he might as well have been a brontosaurus.

As I walked past the marble and bronze statues of Le Jardin des Fontaines Pétrifiantes, I was
remembering our first night, in London. The televised special went well enough. After all, England
had its wrestling fans, and it was a rarity for them to see the likes of Hulk and André: We were just
beginning to get over big in the U.K. I couldn’t help but see a glimpse of the future and the past
when Rollerball Rocco and a bunch of the English boys dropped their bags in the dressing room. Pat
had hired them to work the opening dark match. Rollerball’s Black Tiger gimmick had long since died
in Japan, and now he and the other lads toiled endlessly for a few quid, crisscrossing the U.K. riding
four to a car. In the WWF dressing room they wore envious expressions that reminded me of pack
horses who suddenly found themselves corralled with groomed Clydesdales.The Brits were
awestruck as André lumbered past. To them he might as well have been a brontosaurus.


A lot of pro wrestling’s old horses were falling away or dying off. Britain’s Big Daddy Crabtree had
died in 1997, Loch Ness was failing and then the legendary wrestler BoBo Brazil died at seventy-
three. But the Grim Reaper of wrestling wanted more young bones too. On February 15, 1998, a
drunken Louie Spicolli downed twenty-six Somas and died at the age of twenty-seven, drowning in
his own vomit. The sad thing was that more guys were worried about drug testing being introduced
as a result than about dying like Louie did, or like Brian Pillman had. Eric Bischoff was pissed off after
the news hit the dressing room about Louie, and said to me: “Man, these guys are just getting
dressed and nobody gives a shit.”

Davey, Jim, Tom and I—all of us were now signed on for the whole ride down the rough roads of pro
wrestling, a pack of wild stallions, each taking chances and praying we wouldn’t get lost along the
way. At that time I had no way of knowing that we’d end up together again, in a completely different
place. And in this stampede of wild horses, it felt to me like I was the darkest one.

My right knee would never survive Japan. I realized that if I wanted to feed my family, I needed to
heal and fast: I’d have to take steroids. This was one of the most difficult decisions I ever made. I
called Tom, and within minutes he showed up at my house armed with two loaded needles, one for
each butt cheek. Later on that night I lay shivering in a fever, running to the bathroom with diarrhea
and vomiting. It turned out the steroids were from a veterinarian and were meant for horses. Tom
got sick too.

Behind our house was a carriage house that my dad rented out to an artist, Katie Ohe. She had a
studio and barebones living quarters in there, but she traveled a lot for her art and so was often not
home. She had a white Volkswagen Beetle that seemed like it was intimidated, being parked among
the black-eyed, bloodied Cadillacs all around the yard. One morning it was so cold that my dad
loaded everyone up in one car after another and each one sputtered and died as he turned the
ignition key. With an exasperated “Christ Almighty,” Stu slammed his fist into windshield after
windshield, teeth bared and eyes ablaze, leaving spiderweb cracks in the glass. Finally, he stuffed us
into Katie’s Beetle, like so much cord wood, and we all fought to suppress giggles as he ground the
gears all the way to school.

Davey, Jim, Tom and I—all of us were now signed on for the whole ride down the rough roads of pro
wrestling, a pack of wild stallions, each taking chances and praying we wouldn’t get lost along the
way. At that time I had no way of knowing that we’d end up together again, in a completely different
place. And in this stampede of wild horses, it felt to me like I was the darkest one.

I told him I was sorry, but I couldn’t even ride a horse and, where I come from, if you called yourself
a cowboy, you’d better be one. I was surprised to hear myself suggest to him that since Jimmy Hart,
The Mouth of the South, was already managing Neidhart, they could turn me heel, put us all
together and call us The Hart Foundation.

Davey and me: There was Tom looking mean, Davey with a big naive grin and me looking envious
and desperate. I had finally passed Tom and Davey, the dark horse of the three of us.

we high-fived fans on our way to the ring. I pulled open my jacket to expose the shiny gold belt that
had meant so much to me once upon a time. But now I was galloping beyond that. Beware the dark
horse!

An hour or so later we hiked up to the saltwater pool in Diamond Head, Christian and Tate lugging a
cooler of beer and a bucket of KFC. I took three strides and jumped into the pool. I kept calling Owen
to come in, but he was so cautious that he wouldn’t. I finally coaxed him out and we straddled the
pool wall like a horse, while big, warm, salty waves washed over us. Hanging by our arms we looked
out at the blue Pacific as little crabs scurried over the rocks. A pensive Owen said, “There are some
at home who don’t understand how hard you’ve worked to get this far. They think Vince just hands
you everything on a silver platter. They’re so envious of you and me!” I knew full well that the
business had saved us and that if we were back home with the rest of them, we’d likely be sinking
fast. I told Owen I’d do what I could to get Jim and Davey hired back. Davey quit WCW after he had
been extradited back to Canada to deal with the assault charge stemming from his bar fight. And Jim
had already blown the $380,000 from U.S. Air.

The following day, Julie and I went for a stroll along the beach, but we were taken aback by the
numbers of beggars and drug addicts, many of whom sniffed glue from plastic Baggies while they
pleaded with us for spare change. A murky-green tide washed slime and garbage up at our feet, and
one desperate Filipina woman tried to sell me what appeared to be her ten-year-old daughter for
some quick sex. To escape the beggars and drug addicts, I paid $80 for a horse-and-buggy ride so we
could see the sights, but the road was lined with street people and prostitutes. The driver whipped a
small, emaciated black pony until I finally insisted he let us off. I figured the poor horse was about to
drop dead as it panted and wheezed, with white froth and snot hanging from its nose.




On the walk back to the hotel we stepped over discarded syringes and maneuvered our way past
street people who were shooting up, or sitting naked, or fornicating, as sad-eyed kids sniffed glue to
make it all go away. A warm sprinkle of polluted rain pissed down on the whole wretched mess, but
even a downpour of biblical proportions couldn’t have begun to wash this place clean. Back at the
hotel I looked out the window and saw rising up from this cesspool an inordinately large number of
Catholic church spires that, despite the grime that was everywhere, were immaculately kept.


~

We found Tom’s flat in a miserable, graffiti-stained ghetto on the outskirts of the city. The windows
were boarded up and the charred remains of a car were smoldering out front. He answered the door
in a T-shirt and blue jeans looking James Dean normal, with a V-shaped physique. It was the first
time I’d seen him steroid-free since I’d known him.



“Fookin’ niggers did it,” he said, pointing at the car as he invited us in.



Tom took a seat on a shredded old couch, moving slowly as he eased his way into it, smoking a
cigarette. He rudely referred to his girlfriend, Joanne, as a daft stupid cunt enough times that it
embarrassed everyone except him, and she looked shell-shocked by his behavior. Chief’s face gave
away his disappointment and disgust. When Knobbs innocently blurted out that I was the champ,
Tom nodded and replied, “Intercontinental, right?”



“No, Dyno, he’s the World Champion now. He’s got the big belt.”

When I won the World Championship, I recall thinking, I’d love to see the look on Dynamite’s face
when he finds out. I got to see it now. His first expression was one of disbelief and shock. Then, for
only a moment, he seemed happy, like it confirmed his own greatness in some way. No sooner had I
begun to see that he was maybe even proud of me, then his face turned sour: his look said, This is
what things could have been like for me if I hadn’t become so broke and broken. Then, briefly,
optimism seemed to wash over him: maybe somehow I could help him? But as the thought formed,
he lifted his chin, indignant, his pride hurt—he didn’t want anything from me or anyone else.



While we were there, people drove by and threw things at his house, which, he explained, is why the
windows were all boarded up. Tom was finding out that there was a heavy price for his bigotry. He
still had a real sore spot about Davey, and for that I couldn’t totally blame him. Davey had


trademarked The British Bulldog name before Tom or even Vince, and now he refused to let Tom—
the original British Bulldog—use his own ring name to make a living.



In the car on the way back to the hotel, Chief said he regretted that we’d gone to see him. Dynamite
was one of his favorites, and now his memories would be forever ruined.



Tom showed up at the hotel that night. He’d thought things over a bit and was now blown away by
my position and desperate for any kind of a lifeline from me. I’d already been talking to Chief and
Vince about trying to do something for him. But when I told Tom, he shook his head. “Nah, I’ll never
go back.” I left him in the bar with Knobbs and Sags, where he was soon crying in his beer. All our
hearts went out to him. Dynamite was hard to love, but we did, and it was heartbreaking to see the
best worker I ever knew finally reveal his inner agony at the mistakes he’d made and how things had
ended up for him.



When I won the World Championship, I recall thinking, I’d love to see the look on Dynamite’s face
when he finds out. I got to see it now. His first expression was one of disbelief and shock. Then, for
only a moment, he seemed happy, like it confirmed his own greatness in some way. No sooner had I
begun to see that he was maybe even proud of me, then his face turned sour: his look said, This is
what things could have been like for me if I hadn’t become so broke and broken. Then, briefly,
optimism seemed to wash over him: maybe somehow I could help him? But as the thought formed,
he lifted his chin, indignant, his pride hurt—he didn’t want anything from me or anyone else.



While we were there, people drove by and threw things at his house, which, he explained, is why the
windows were all boarded up. Tom was finding out that there was a heavy price for his bigotry. He
still had a real sore spot about Davey, and for that I couldn’t totally blame him. Davey had

I walked out wearing my friend Tie Domi’s Maple Leafs jersey underneath my Hitmen jersey. I knew
if Eric had seen it, he’d have made me take it off because he was already terrified that I was going to
go over so strong with the Canadian crowd that it would turn Goldberg heel, which was going to
happen anyway, no matter what we did. I received a thundering ovation from the crowd, and then
on the mic, I accused Goldberg of hiding in his dressing room, biting his fingernails and trembling
with fear. While I peeled off my Hitmen jersey to expose the Maple Leafs jersey, declaring Canada
“hockey country,” Eric was frantically running around backstage screaming at Goldberg to get out
there before I killed him off. When Goldberg finally got in the ring, snorting like a Brahma bull, I
taunted him, begging him to come and get me. When he spear-tackled me, the fans had no idea
what was going to happen next. We both lay there without moving for what seemed like an eternity.
Then I rolled him off me, counted him out, stood up, peeled my jersey off and threw it down on his
unconscious body revealing the “steel” plate: the whole building came unglued. As Eric requested, I
got on the mic and declared, “Hey, WCW, I quit!”


~~

The Governor General’s office called on Valentine’s Day with the much-needed good news that Stu
would be invested as a Member of the Order of Canada on May 31. My mom wanted me to
accompany them to Ottawa for the ceremony, but when Stu’s pneumonia landed him back in the
hospital for much of April, we wondered if he’d be able to make it. I did my best to avoid any more
confrontations with opposing family members. I’d spent the winter coming back from my
concussion, watching Blade play hockey; I also started working on this book. Ever since I’d gone to
work for the WWF I’d carried a tape recorder with me all over the world, recording a diary of my life.
I just kept thinking, This will make a hell of a book some-day, and it seemed to me that the time had
come.






One night I had a dream that I had WWF’s current World Champion, Kurt Angle, in a tight headlock.
In the dream, I asked myself if it was really happening, and to figure out if it was real or not, I stared
at the sweat dripping off his head and then focused on the blue fabric of the ring canvas. In my
dream I concluded it was not a dream, and when I woke up, for the first and only time I really missed
working.



Carlo invited me to the WWF show in Calgary on May 28. I told him I’d like to meet Kurt Angle and
Brock Lesner, but I wasn’t comfortable going to Raw so close to the second anniversary of Owen’s
death. Why the WWF insisted on running shows in Calgary each May I’ll never know. It infuriated
Martha and lit a fuse to the powder keg at Hart house.



Carlo knew I was still extremely sensitive about what Vince had done to me, but he passed on the
message that Vince wanted me to know that he didn’t hate me: If I wanted to come down to the
show he’d be more than happy to shake my hand. But the problem wasn’t him hating me anymore—
it was me hating him. Aside from sticking it in my eye every chance he got, he’d destroyed the
harmony of the Hart family, for which I was being blamed.



Carlo then asked me about Stu’s health, saying that Ellie, Diana and Bruce desperately wanted Stu to
be on TV to show the world that the Hart family had made peace with the WWF. He said that they
had requested five hundred free tickets to the show—they didn’t get them, of course—and didn’t
seem to see the absurdity of the situation. As soon as I hung up the phone, I drove down to Stu’s. I
was relieved when he told me through gritted teeth that he didn’t want to go to Raw, but that he
was being made to go.



“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, and I’ll be here to make sure of it!” I said. But
Ellie, Diana and Bruce were more than determined to see that Stu should go. Meanwhile, in another
chapter of our public soap opera, Martha told the media that she would be deeply offended if any of
the family went to the WWF show, which only put added pressure on my parents to fix something
that couldn’t be fixed.



May 28, 2001. If the show is to start in the evening, the talent usually arrives at the building in the
afternoon. When I got to Stu’s house at ten that morning, I thought I was in more than enough time
to spare him from going to the Calgary Raw. But I was too late: Ellie and Bruce had dragged him off
at eight o’clock in the morning. I’d hear later that Diana and Bruce wheeled him into Vince’s office
like a battering ram, then commenced a heated argument over who could make their pitch to Vince
first. But Vince was so busy with TV, he soon had them cleared out of his office.




As upset as I was, I told my mom that it would do Stu good to see the boys in the dressing room. But
I thought it would break my heart if they paraded him out on Raw—the public would think that Stu
had forgiven Vince for everything.



I didn’t go down to the Saddledome. Tears came to my eyes as I watched the opening of the live
show at home on TV: there was a clearly tired, deflated and demoralized Stu sitting in the front row
with Ellie, Diana, Georgia, Bruce and Smith, who grinned as he held up a big sign that read, HA HA
BRET.



At the end of the show, Vince stuck his big, fat, salty thumb in my eye as far as he could by
reenacting the Survivor Series screwjob finish, in Calgary, right in front of my father, as he played the
corrupt promoter who rang the bell as Benoit had Stone Cold in my sharp-shooter. I drove down to
Stu’s and burst into my mom’s bedroom. Rage filled me as I denounced every single one of them for
doing this to me—I was through with them all. I didn’t know how to forgive any of them. I stomped
down the stairs and took both Owen’s and my childhood photos off the wall, leaving two white
dusty blanks. I slammed the kitchen door as I left and burned rubber out of the yard, feeling every
bit as betrayed as I did the day Vince ordered poor Mark Yeaton to ring the bell.





The next morning, Bruce drove an eighty-six-year-old Stu three hours north to the Smackdown
taping in Edmonton and put him through the whole thing again. Both Benoit and Jericho called me,
concerned about Stu’s health and state of exhaustion.



Even though I’d looked forward to going to Ottawa to see Stu receive the Order of Canada, I was so
offended by everything that had happened I chose not to go. As a result, I missed something that I
had my heart set on. By June, I realized how it was wrong to punish my parents for being used by my
brothers and sisters. Stu and Helen were both broken-hearted by my absence so, after a couple of
weeks, I showed up and put the pictures back up on the wall. Then I went upstairs and wrapped my
arms around my mom and, as I felt her shake with emotion, I silently loathed my brothers and sisters
for doing this to her. I felt so sorry for all of us. I couldn’t help but feel as though I was free-falling
into a bottomless pit of despair. If I’d had to write a will, it would have been a few lines, but if I’d had
to write a suicide note, it would have been a thousand pages long.



Throughout that summer, whenever I pulled into Stu’s yard, Ellie and Diana would race out of the
house and flee in their cars. But in a lot of little ways, I told myself, things hadn’t changed too much.
There was always a ring full of grandkids wrestling out in the yard, dogs and cats everywhere, a fresh
pot of tea and five or ten young wannabe wrestlers taking bumps in the dungeon.




On a hot July afternoon, I opened my car door, my sidekick Coombs jumped out and together we
went in search of my mom. I followed his snorts all the way into her office and gave her a big hug.
She was never that crazy about dogs, but her mother, Gah-Gah, absolutely adored pugs. I soon had
her laughing, and telling me stories. One of her favorites was about the time I lost my hug. One of
her childhood friends from New York, who went by the name Little Helen (because she was even
tinier than my mom, which wasn’t that easy to be), came to visit when I was about three. She was
getting hugs from everybody, but when it came to my turn, I was too shy to hug a stranger. She
jokingly asked, “Where’s my hug?” My eyes got big and I told her, “I lost it.” For the whole week she
was there, I pretended I was still looking for it. Luckily for her I found it on her last day!



Despite these attempts to cheer her up, I could tell my mom was really upset. Finally she told me
that she’d read a draft of a tell-all book that Diana had coming out soon. Diana had got Stu to write
the foreword without him reading the manuscript. My mom was so upset because, unbeknownst to
Stu, he had endorsed a book that trashed his own family. She was trying desperately to cheer herself
up, thinking of the reunion she was about to have with her sisters in California. I was thinking, Diana,
what have you done?



In September, I went to Australia to promote a tour for a fellow named Andrew McManus who had a
new wrestling outfit called WWA. He asked me to help put them on the map by playing a non-
wrestling role as their figurehead Commissioner. I enjoyed helping out the smaller promotions
whenever I could, as a way of giving back to the business that’d given me so much. It did give me the
opportunity to visit Australia, though; I’d never been there before, and I was having a great time.



My concussion was finally beginning to clear, though I still wasn’t allowed to lift weights or do any
other form of exercise. On September 12, 2001, in Australia I’d just done a live night-time talk show
with a host named Rove and was thrilled with how it had gone. I headed back to my hotel room and
met some of the wrestlers from the tour in the elevator. They told me somebody had flown an
airplane into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. When I got to my room I watched in
horror, with the rest of the world, as the second plane hit. I stared at the TV all night with a deep
sadness that heaped itself on the pain and hurt I already carried around.



I loved New York. She’d been good to me. I always thought of the New York skyline as a beautiful girl
smiling at me. Now she had broken teeth; they’d really done a job on her. It was still hard for me to
imagine a horror and sorrow beyond Owen, and I wondered what he’d have thought. I thought of
home and how devastated my mom would be watching this on TV. She and Stu still remembered the
impact of Pearl Harbor, and how out of that catastrophe and the war that followed, they met and
fell in love on a beach on Long Island, New York.




Being in Australia made it all so surreal, as if it wasn’t surreal enough already. I was stranded in
Melbourne until there were flights to take me back to North America. I remember walking over to
the Melbourne Aquarium, where I watched sharks and stingrays float over my head in giant glass
tanks.



I couldn’t help thinking that if anything ever happened to me, I’d still want it known that I wouldn’t
change anything about my life. A voice in my head kept telling me to live and live and live.



When I finally got back to Calgary, a week late, I learned that my poor mom had been delayed at LAX
for an entire day because of the heightened security, and that her diabetes medicine had been in her
checked luggage. The way I see it, Osama bin Laden also caused my mother’s death. After getting
home exhausted, she collapsed into a coma that she never really came out of. Poor Stu was
distraught over not calling an ambulance for my mother as soon as she got sick. I don’t think he ever
got over that. He had been too weak and disabled to pick her frail body up from the floor.



Diana’s book came out at the same time. The opening paragraph described Davey drugging and
sodomizing her, and it went downhill from there. Diana told ridiculous stories about there being a
wrestling alligator in the basement, about her friendship with André The Giant and her stardom in
the WWF. She even ripped into close family friends such as Ed Whalen, saying he was no good at his
job and stole Stu’s thunder. When Diana hit the talk shows promoting her book, even the affable
Mike Bullard, who referred to me as a Canadian hero, treated her with sarcasm. When I realized how
truly clueless Diana was about the way people were reacting, I actually felt sorry for her. I’d later
hear that Diana was misled by the woman who actually wrote the book, and embroidered Diana’s
stories. Was I to assume that Diana was not even capable of reading her own book to approve its
release?



Meanwhile in the ICU, my mom’s baby sister, my aunt Diana, told my sister she didn’t appreciate
some of the remarks in the book. My sister snapped back at her, “My mother never even liked you!”
Meanwhile, thirty feet away, my poor mom lingered on.



For days, the doctors pulled every trick in the book to bring her back to life. She suffered
immeasurably with IV tubes in her arms and a respirator tube down her throat. She finally came out
of it just enough to breathe on her own, barely. Too weak to talk, she could only squeeze my hand.
One time she came around enough to faintly whisper, “How’s Coombs?”




I knew she had to be hating all this, and was surely cursing the doctors for keeping her alive. At
three-thirty in the morning of November 4, 2001, with Stu holding her hand, she slipped away and
found the peace she so long deserved. At that very moment I was lying awake in bed. I said out loud,
“I’m so sorry, Mom, that the light grew so dim at the end.” I felt a soft breeze sweep over me and I
just knew it was my mom saying good-bye.



Only weeks after Ed Whalen gave a heartfelt eulogy at my mom’s funeral, he also passed away.



In January 2002, Tie Domi came to town for a game and we headed up to Hart house to visit my dad.
Tie was a compact man with a head that looked like it was chiseled out of granite; he was generally
regarded as the toughest guy in hockey. I called Stu to let him know we were coming, and when we
got there, he was waiting for us all alone in his spot at the head of the dining-room table. Tie was
dressed in a nice, neat suit. As we approached, Stu turned, stared at him and said, “You got an
interesting head on ya.” We all burst out laughing. If anybody had seen a lot of strange heads, it was
Stu.



A few minutes later, Stu had Tie bent back over the table, trying to show him how he could pull
another player in close and stick his chin into the guy’s eye socket and trip him backwards on the ice.
Stu had Tie half twisted up with cat hair all over his nice slacks. After about an hour, I finally got Tie
out of there. He told me later that the move Stu showed him would probably work in a hockey fight,
if he dared take a chance on it.



On February 27, Carlo called me wanting me to do a trade-off: If I’d referee at Wrestlemania XVIII,
Vince would give me some pictures to use for this book. This was only the latest in a constant stream
of attempts to get me back on Vince’s TV shows. It was damage control; in the end, even guys who’d
left on the worst possible terms always went back to Vince. I did want a truce with Vince, but I also
wanted a public apology, one that Carlo told me I’d never get. I thought of my nephews, Harry and
Ted, and even T.J. Wilson, who all dreamed about someday wrestling in the big time. I didn’t want
my animosity toward Vince to jeopardize everything they dreamed of, but I had no intention of
showing up at Wrestlemania as a referee. I told Carlo all I really wanted was a meeting with Vince to
clear the air between us.



The following day Carlo and Bruce Allen got me on a conference call and did their best to bully me
into believing that it would be in my best interest to referee at Wrestlemania. They set up a meeting
in New York City a few days later, but when I was packing to leave, Carlo called to say that if I wasn’t
going to agree to do Wrestlemania I shouldn’t bother to show up—I’d only be wasting his and
Vince’s time. I asked him to tell me if he truly thought that refereeing at Wrestlemania was the right


thing for me to do. He thought he had the hook in my lip as he went on about how this would be
fantastic for me. Now I knew he was nothing but a company man. I refused.



On May 18 that year, the Grim Reaper of wrestling took Davey. He was vacationing in Invermere,
British Columbia, with Andrea and died in his sleep of a heart attack at the age of thirty-nine. Andrea
was Davey’s girl at the end, even though she and Bruce were still married.



There were two funerals for Davey. Diana called to ask me to give a eulogy at the one she organized
and I agreed, but first I attended the service Andrea put together. Poor Andrea was crying hard, and
I was glad I made it there for her. I saw some of the old Stampede crew, including Ben Bassarab, who
was one of Davey’s closest mates, and his new wife, who was also very nice. But Bad News, Gerry
Morrow and Gamma Singh snubbed me. They were all down and out, working security jobs
together: None of them even talked to me. What did I ever do to them? I asked myself, and then I
knew—I didn’t go broke.



Diana timed her memorial service for Davey for May 29, the same day the WWF was in town. Vince,
Hogan and others came. Ellie, who spoke just before me, ripped into poor Andrea with a vengeance.
Wrong place, wrong time, awkward silence. Eventually one of the funeral home staff eased her away
from the podium. I rose to clean up her mess and to give Davey a fitting send-off, which left both
Harry and his baby sister Georgia smiling with tears in their eyes. I loved Davey like a brother. His
biggest mistake was letting bad people influence his innocent heart. I spoke of how I remembered
him best as that shy, handsome kid with the big dimples.



I’m sorry, Bax, I thought, I should have been there for ya.



When I arrived at Hart house after the service, I was simmering with a lot of pent-up emotion. It was
extremely hot in the kitchen. When I asked my dad how he felt, he told me he was tired and he
didn’t feel up to going to the WWF show. But then Ellie came in, and I could tell by the way he
pursed his lips that she was dragging him down to the show.



I told Ellie, “He’s tired. Clearly, he doesn’t want to go. Look at him.”



She snapped that Vince had invited him, like that was more important than his health.




In a flash, we had broken into a vicious yelling match, where I ripped into her for embarrassing the
whole family at Davey’s funeral. “We were supposed to pay our respects, not take shots,” I said.
Soon my sister Georgia and Ellie’s eldest daughter, Jenny, took up for Ellie and while I was arguing
with them, Ellie dragged Stu down the steps and zoomed off.



I felt terrible about the fight, realizing that the stress of everything was getting to me. Harry, now a
strapping six-foot-five with Davey’s dimples, came up to me then, thanked me for my words at the
funeral.



I was carrying around anger, torment, regret and grief like a big bag of heavy rocks.



I’d been asked to dress like Mordecai Richler’s character The Hooded Fang and deliver a monologue
from his children’s book, Jacob Two-Two and the Hooded Fang, on a CBC special celebrating Richler’s
life. On Thursday, June 20, I brought Julie to Montreal with me for the show. I was happy to be part
of a cast including Richard Dreyfuss, Montreal Canadiens legend Jean Beliveau and several
prominent stage and literary notables, but I’d let myself get really worried about how I’d do. I still
had a thick, fuzzy head and concentration problems, and this show was live to tape. I studied the
script for weeks.



I slipped a black wrestling mask over my head. When I looked in the mirror, it seemed like I was
living my dream of working a crowd as my childhood cartoon wrestling character The Cool Cool
Killer—or close enough anyway. Despite a last-second glitch with my mic as I walked on stage, I
carried the role off. Halfway through my monologue I pulled off my mask and got a pleasant pop of
recognition from the crowd. I bowed, and my smile was a dead giveaway of how proud I was of
myself. Maybe my concussion was finally behind me.



Afterwards, I got slaps on the back from Dreyfuss and Beliveau. To top off the evening, I had a
terrific time wining and dining Julie in old Montreal.

I had heard that he was supposed to do the stunt with the same Mexican midget they paraded out
as me after Montreal scissored between his legs, and was shocked when the cops confirmed it. The
midget had only been nixed that afternoon. The officers calmly explained that Owen had been alive
after he hit the ring and that he lay there for eight minutes with a severed aorta, his lungs filling with


blood until he drowned. He had tried to sit up, to reassure the fans, but he couldn’t. The impact
when he hit the ring smashed almost all the heavy wooden ring planks and loosened all the ropes
like they were rubber bands.



We were also told that criminal charges weren’t likely to be laid but hadn’t been ruled out.



Afterwards, the Robbs took us to Kemper Arena. As we headed up to the catwalk, Ed Pipella noticed
a creepy insurance adjuster tagging along with us. When Ed quizzed him about who he was and what
he was doing there, it turned into an ugly scuffle until security dragged the adjuster off.



It was a long climb to the top of the building. I wanted to get to the exact spot where Owen had
fallen and started up a steep ladder to the catwalk. My stomach was queasy as I thought of a line
from The English Patient, “If I gave you my life would you drop it?” Then it was a long, nerve-
wracking walk along the catwalk to the score clock—and this was with the lights on. I could just
imagine Owen having to race all the way up here as fast as he could in the dark, dressed in bulky
coveralls, with a baseball cap pulled down to hide his face from the fans. Climbing over the railing of
the catwalk must have been a terrifying moment. Standing next to the score clock, I looked out to
where he would have hung. I pictured him fidgeting with his cape, breathing hard from the sprint up
and then—ping—the sailboat clip holding his full weight released prematurely: the deep breaths he
was taking would have provided more than the eight pounds of pressure the clip was designed to
take. The riggers happened to be looking away at that moment, and when they turned back they
were aghast to see that he was already falling, clawing at the air with his hands. I looked down and a
chill went up my back wondering how in hell he let himself get talked into this. If Montreal never
happened, I thought, and I had still been in the WWF, I would’ve stopped this from ever happening
to Owen!



By the time I got home, I was even more distraught and wildly confused. Owen had been so straight
and so good, whereas I had always broken the rules, always been a bad boy, drinking, doing drugs
and cheating on my wife. Why would God take the best one? Owen once said, “You can be a good
person and do everything right and it doesn’t guarantee you anything.” Since his death, the Harts
were forming into backstabbing cliques of their own, with Ellie and Diana fiercely demanding that
Martha and my parents settle with Vince immediately, extolling the head of the WWF as some kind
of saint who loved all the Harts.



Not surprisingly, a desperate Bruce, with his wrestling school and the broken-down vestiges of the
Stampede Wrestling promotion, was looking for Vince to fund him in some way. Smith was talking
about suing Vince because, he claimed, he and Owen were going to open a wrestling school
together. Owen wouldn’t have opened up a lemonade stand with Smith! Every time I encountered


them at Hart house, Ellie and Diana demanded that I fill them in on the details of the lawsuit, yet
every time I tried to make Martha’s case, it turned into a shouting match, which only upset my
parents and the grandkids. If Martha could’ve been a little kinder to them, instead of propping me
up to take the heat, she might have avoided a lot of heartache, for herself and everyone else. But
really, this whole thing should have had nothing to do with the other Hart siblings, or me.



In one of her many curt phone messages, Ellie implored me: “I’ve got the right to feed my family,
and my dealings with Vince McMahon don’t have anything to do with you, and nothing to do with
Owen’s death. Not everyone wants you to be their spokesperson.” Ellie and Diana soon had Vince
convinced that I was the driving force behind Martha’s lawsuit. After Owen died, we had reached a
delicate détente about my archive of matches for the WWF, which Vince totally controlled, and he
had been on the verge of agreeing that I could have access to them. Now the WWF’s in-house law-
yer told my lawyer, Gord Kirke, that Vince simply had no recollection of any conversation with me on
the subject. Vince now saw me as the enemy and seemed determined to make me suffer, as if I
hadn’t suffered enough.



Eric asked me to fly down and meet him in Chicago on June 25 to talk about where I was at. It was
still nearly impossible for me even to think about getting back into the ring, but as the days passed, I
realized that it wasn’t right for me or my fans to let Owen’s tragic death be the end of my career.
Eric had been incredibly kind after Owen’s death, telling me to take all the time I needed, and I
didn’t want to leave him in the lurch either.



At our meeting, Hulk was friendly and told me that he was anxious to finally work with me in the fall
that year. Eric talked about putting the World title on me, but he understood that I wasn’t ready to
commit to anything yet and that I still needed time to heal physically and emotionally. Both of them
listened empathetically as I told them about the problems in the Hart family since Owen’s death and
that Vince had offered jobs to both Jim and Davey, in effect bribing Ellie and Diana to be on his side
against Owen’s widow. Eric kindly said if it would help the situation, he’d hire Jim back and told me
to have Jim give him a call. I left, shaking both their hands, content to show up at the Georgia Dome
on July 5 for an in-ring interview on Nitro. Eric told me I could say anything I wanted wrestling fans
around the world to hear. For the next ten days I thought about it almost all the time. I really didn’t
know what I’d say. Maybe it would be good-bye.



44



“WATCH THE KICK!”




WHEN I WALKED INTO THE DRESSING ROOM at the Georgia Dome, the boys rose from their chairs,
one after another, to offer heartfelt condolences. In that moment, as in too many others, I felt more
support and unity from my wrestling brothers than from my blood siblings. It meant so much to me
when Randy Savage gave me a hug, with tears in his eyes. “Brother, I’m so sorry.” Jim Duggan put his
hand on my shoulder. “Sorry man!” (Hacksaw had beaten the cancer and was now back at work,
minus his right kidney.)



Before I knew it, I was caught up trading Owen stories with Randy, Hacksaw, Crush and Brian
Knobbs. I felt safe being back with the men who truly understood this life. These were my brothers
from other mothers.



Suddenly, I was called out to do my interview. My terrible WCW entrance music rumbled and the
crowd cheered as I made my way up the aisle, still having no idea what I was going to say! This was
going to be a shot from the heart. Without even thinking about it, that day I left The Hitman behind
and for the first time came out to the ring as Bret Hart, as real as real can be. No Hitman shades,
leather jacket, ring gear, hair gel—not even the strut and the attitude. I did all I could not to break
down as twenty-five thousand fans grew still for me, and for Owen.



And so, I learned at the same time as the fans did what was in my heart and on my mind. I told them
what Owen meant to me and that I was at a crossroads in my life and I just didn’t know if I’d ever be
back. “I’m gonna take some time, put things in perspective, but if I never get the chance to ever say
it again, I just want to thank all my fans everywhere that I ever had and still have. You’ve been with
me from the very start and if this is the last chance I ever get to talk to all my fans all over the world,
thank you very, very much. I wanna thank all the wrestlers in dressing rooms all over the world, it
was a pleasure to work with each and every one of you. I hope I wasn’t too stiff!”



I returned home to find another phone message from Ellie: “I want to know what’s going on with the
lawsuit. I want to find out what options Mom and Dad have. If you want to go through with this five
or six years down the road, even two years, it’s taking its toll on Dad and we need to discuss this. It’s
not the only way to go. Enlighten me a bit. Di and me haven’t done anything yet. We’ve got a bad
rap. No more stress on Dad.”



What was I to make of that?



When I called my mom, she said, “I just wake up every day and try to live with it all day long all over
again.” Stu was never the same after Owen died. My mom wept, a few weeks later, when I confided
to her that I’d been talking to Senator Harry Hayes’s office in Ottawa and that they were in the


process of nominating Stu for the Order of Canada, the highest civilian medal of honor in the
country, in recognition of the lifetime of charity work my dad had done.



My mom said that I needed to remember that she and Stu were with me 100 percent, and that they
were suing the WWF along with Martha. In an attempt to ease the family tension, Martha’s lawyers
were trying to work out an agreement that would allocate a portion of my parents’ settlement to
each of the remaining siblings if Stu and Helen died before the suit was settled. But Ellie, Diana and
Bruce refused to sign any such agreement. Before long, Ellie was calling Martha’s lawyers names
again. The idea was scrubbed and the potential truce was quickly forgotten.



On July 27, Vince coolly stated on Off The Record: “Out of respect for Owen, I met with Bret. Bret
carried the entire conversation. I really thought he wanted to talk about Owen. . . . It was looking
into the eyes of a skeleton, in some respects. It seemed like he wasn’t human. It was a very weird
experience.” Vince went on to pretty much blame me for everything related to Martha’s lawsuit. I
was already mad that he’d reneged on his promise to give me access to my footage, but when he
referred to me as a skeleton and to my not being human, my anger flared into real hatred. But as far
as criminal responsibility for Owen’s death went, four days later he was in the clear. After two
months, on July 31, then and only then did the Kansas City Police determine that there wasn’t
enough evidence for criminal charges against Vince.