A Journey to Canada’s Hart: Finding Calgary, Wrestling Royalty, and a New Beginning

Last October, not long after my father passed away, I travelled to Calgary for a one-day work conference with Two Small Men with Big Hearts.

It was my first time ever visiting Calgary and it was a welcome distraction from the grief I was trying to process. 

Even though I was only in town for a day and didn't really get to visit too many Calgary neighbourhoods other than the downtown core, the trip stayed with me long after.

When you grow up in Canada, certain cities take on an almost mythical quality long before you ever see them yourself. Calgary was one of those places for me. Part of it was the western identity of the city itself: the prairies, the Stampede, the mountains in the distance. But a huge part of it was professional wrestling.

As a lifelong wrestling fan, Calgary always felt legendary because of the Hart family.

And strangely enough, wrestling was also one of the quiet things that connected generations in my own family.

A bond through three generations

My father was what I’d call a closeted wrestling fan.

Like a lot of dads from his generation, he would never fully admit how much he enjoyed it. He’d act like he was only casually watching if wrestling happened to be on television, but somehow he always knew about the names, the rivalries, and the storylines.

He knew guys like Bret Hart, Jim Neidhart, and the British Bulldog, who were all core members of the Hart family wrestling dynasty when I was a kid.

In many ways, the Hart family bridged generations of wrestling fans.

Older fans respected them because they came out of the traditional Stampede Wrestling promotion established by Stu Hart, the family’s original patriarch. They represented toughness, technical skill, and old-school wrestling values. But for kids growing up in the late ’80s and ’90s like me, they also became iconic stars during wrestling’s biggest boom period.

The Hart family connected fathers and sons, older fans and younger fans, in a way very few wrestlers ever could.

For my dad, they represented the wrestling world he remembered.

For me, they became part of the wrestling world I grew up loving.

And now, years later, wrestling has become something I share with my own son too.

One of the things I’ve thought about more since my father passed away is how the smallest traditions often become the most meaningful.

Wrestling was one of those traditions.

What started as me watching wrestling with my dad eventually became me introducing wrestling to my own son. Suddenly, the same excitement, characters, entrances, and stories that connected me to my father were now connecting me to my child.

And my dad absolutely adored his grandson. The love he had for him was impossible to miss. Watching them together always reminded me how family connections evolve across generations in ways you don’t fully appreciate until later. 

Calgary and the Hart Legacy

For wrestling fans, Calgary is sacred ground.

The Hart family helped shape professional wrestling through Stampede Wrestling, the territory founded by Stu Hart. Long before wrestling became a global entertainment industry, Calgary was producing some of the toughest and most technically skilled wrestlers in the world.

At the centre of that history was the famous Hart House.

The Hart House became legendary because of its infamous basement training dungeon, where aspiring wrestlers trained under brutal conditions to learn discipline, endurance, and technical wrestling fundamentals. Wrestlers from around the world came through Calgary to train there, and many became icons of the industry.

Out of that environment came Bret Hart, arguably the greatest Canadian wrestler of all time.

For many Canadians, Bret Hart represented something uniquely Canadian: professionalism, humility, resilience, and pride in where he came from. He wasn’t flashy for attention. He earned respect through consistency and excellence.

Growing up, he was one of my heroes.

Calgary State of Mind

There’s something powerful about finally seeing a place you’ve imagined for years.

Even during a quick one-day work trip, Calgary immediately felt distinct. The city had this mix of toughness and warmth that’s hard to explain unless you’ve been there. It felt modern but deeply connected to its own history at the same time.

Because I was there working with Two Small Men with Big Hearts, I experienced the city differently than a tourist would. Working in moving gives you a closer look at a city and the people who live there. You see homes, apartment buildings, loading docks, quiet neighbourhood streets, and people going through major life changes.

That’s one thing I’ve come to appreciate about the moving industry.

Relocating to a new province, city, or even a new neighbourhood, is much more than a geographical transition.

People move because life changes. Sometimes it’s exciting. Sometimes moving is stressful and difficult. Sometimes it’s both at once.

At that point in my own life, I was carrying a lot emotionally too.

Meeting the Hitman

While I was in Calgary, I was sorely tempted to visit the Hart House but I was a little short on time so I ultimately stopped into Hitman’s Bar, located inside Cowboys Casino.

Owned by Bret himself, the bar was home to a magnificent collection of memorabilia and historical artifacts from his personal collection. 

It was mid afternoon and I was mostly by myself in the bar.

“This place is amazing,” I said to the bartender.

She responded: “Do you want to know a secret?”

Yes. Desperately.

“Bret’s on his way right now.”

I audibly gasped. I couldn’t believe the happenstance. And then, 20 minutes later, The Hitman arrived.

As a lifelong wrestling fan, it already felt surreal. But in the wake of my father’s passing, the moment hit me emotionally in a way I didn’t expect.

Standing there in Calgary, meeting someone my dad and I had watched decades earlier, felt strangely significant. Bret Hart wasn’t just part of my childhood. He was part of my own Canadian identity and representative of the sports entertainment industry that connected me with my father and son. 

That’s the thing about wrestling families like the Harts. Their legacy stretches across generations. Fathers and sons, parents and kids, old-school fans and newer fans all find some point of connection through them. For a brief moment, it felt like all of those generations overlapped at once.

I made a point of saying hi to Bret. It wasn’t a long conversation, but he was gracious and courteous. What struck me most about him was how grounded he seemed. Despite being one of the most famous wrestlers in history, he carried himself with a quiet humility that felt unmistakably Canadian.

It didn’t feel like meeting a celebrity.

It felt like meeting a piece of Canadian history.

Moving Forward

Looking back now, it’s strange how much meaning can come from a single day.

What started as a one-day work trip became tied to grief, memory, wrestling, family, and the experience of seeing a city I had thought about for years.

That trip also reminded me why I’ve come to respect working for Two Small Men with Big Hearts Moving.

Every day, we help people through transitions. We help people move forward during emotional, uncertain, and important moments in their lives. Sometimes people are starting exciting new chapters. Sometimes they’re rebuilding after difficult ones.

Last October, during my first and only day in Calgary, I realized I was doing some rebuilding myself.

And somewhere between a work conference, the legacy of the Hart family, memories of my father, and an unexpected conversation with Bret Hart, I found a reminder that the things connecting generations never really disappear.

They keep moving forward with us.