I swore never to return to that arctic pit of misery which lies just across our northern borders. Those damn dirty Canadians...Crafty bastards, the lot of 'em.

Track and Field Junior Olympic Nationals, Buffalo, NY.

The year was 2000, the beginning of a new millennia. A fresh start. I was still just a child, not even in highschool yet, thrust into a strange and dangerous world. A devastatingly...Canadian world.

I had qualified for two events at the national level that year. It was my first foray into that level of competition, and I was shit-my-pants scared, I kid you not.

My teammates and I had arrived a few days early, so as to minimize the flight's affects on our legs. Or, at least that's what we were told. We had no idea of the ambush we were walking into. It was a fucking massacre from the start.

It began innocently enough - one coach, a Canadian native, offered to show us around his country. Being naïve youngsters, we accepted the invitation and set off across the border. We didn't notice it then, but looking back upon that moment, my teammates and I all agree that an imperceptible change occurred, almost instantaneously, upon our entering that vast wasteland known as "Canada". A chill descended upon our very souls as we peered anxiously from the van's windows, apprehensively studying the strange natives inhabiting that ominous land. Fools we were - lambs being led to the slaughter - and not one of us smart enough to know it.

The van ground to a halt and we were ushered from the safety therein, quickly and without remorse. My teammates and I were standing in the thick of it then - just a couple scared children, surrounded by the enemy. Their ways were foreign to us, with their mumbled "aboot's", "ay's" and "pardon me's".

Without any fanfare, our Canadian coach, the Benedict Arnold of our happy party, led us on a walking tour of his native land. Hour after hour we walked, until our muscles ached and sweat poured down our ashen faces. We walked from the Falls to the Skylon Tower, from the Indoor Waterpark to the Crystal Caves. We battled through herds of moose too numerous to count, and explored acre upon acres of Maple Trees, with syrup pouring from every trunk. None of us can remember how long we walked - whether it was days, weeks, months, or just a quick afternoon stroll - we all seemed to have blocked it out.

The following day, my race was waiting for me - the first member of our team to suffer the result of the Canadian master plan. During the warm-up jog, my legs felt hollow and useless - feelings that, at the time, I simply attributed to nerves. Approaching the line, I should have been relishing the last few moments of my youthful innocence, but instead was preparing my mind for the race ahead. I should have noticed my Canadian competitors that stood beside me on that line - their smirks and confident swagger should have warned me of their nation's plan. But I was too young and too stupid to see the truth right before my eyes.

In a blur, my world was enveloped by gunfire and the smell of smoke. The sun beat down upon the 20 of us as we pushed off the line simultaneously, all of us jockeying for position. Even within the first few steps, I knew something was wrong. Horribly wrong. My legs felt like jello, forcing my arms and lungs to pump furiously just to keep pace with my competitors. After the first half-lap, I felt like I had already run a mile. My legs felt disconnected from my body, wobbly - as if I had forgotten how to place one foot in-front of the other.

I was already dead, but too stupid to know it.

Afterwards, lying on the track, my uniform sticking to my body with the sweat and blood of a futile effort, I knew exactly what had happened - The Canadians had taken my legs! My legs!! Raising my fists towards the heavens with all the rage a boy of 14 could muster, I screamed. I screamed against the injustice of the moment. I screamed against the Canadians and their fiendish plot to exhaust American competitors with walking tours of Niagra Falls. I screamed so that mighty Zeus would hear my plea and render that foul nation asunder.

But my prayers were not answered.

And now they want me to go back. They want me to land in the very heart of that hostile territory and remain there for 4 days, which is 96 more hours than I care to tolerate. They want me to interact with the natives, with the same people who stole my innocence when I was only a child.

Well, now I am a man *cocks gun* and this time I'll be ready for them.

WOOOO MONTREAL MEET 2010