Hometown basks in hero's glow 6,000 greet Montgomery at parade

March 15, 2010

RUSSELL, Manitoba – A swell of cheers and screams and impromptu renditions of the Canadian anthem was sung by an estimated 6,000 people that lined Russell’s Main Street Sunday afternoon. Jon Montgomery, the Olympic gold men’s skeleton winner, came home to a $30,000 street party compiled of 107 parade floats and eight blocks of Canadian-flag-draped children and equally ecstatic parents. Every word Montgomery spoke was caught by microphones, notepads and perked ears. Because he's "our Jon" now, Canada's Jon, an athlete who dusted off the top of the podium and hopped right into the national mythos, even gifting us with a persistent icon of victory.

Many revellers, of course, had seen him before... quite a lot of him, in fact. "He was a little spitfire," chuckled Debra Jackson, a Russell resident who lives down the street from the Montgomery family. The last time she tried to yell "congratulations" to Jon's parents Joan and Eldon, she said, she started crying.

"We have been pumped for weeks now," Jackson said. "It has been non-stop (since Montgomery's gold medal win). Every time I see him on TV, it brings a tear to my eye, and we're all like that."

No fewer than 15 MLAs, six mayors, three reeves and one MP marched into an indoor ceremony shortly before 4 p.m. to shower what one sign called "Manitoba's new golden boy" with accolades and appreciation.

"Nobody can go that fast, that close to the ground without being grounded," Premier Greg Selinger said of Montgomery's affable, small-town attitude. Premier Selinger awarded Montgomery The Order of The Buffalo Hunt.

Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz handed Montgomery the key to the city of Winnipeg. "You don't want to give me the key to anything," Montgomery quipped later, "because I'll show up."

Don't tell that to the thousands who slipped into a snaking line stretching around the barbecue field, waiting for an hour to get the hero's autograph; they might just send him the key to everything.



Source: Winnipeg Free Press, March 15, 2010