Atlantic Canada gets amateur MMA before Ontario gets any

Can I just say how depressing it is to know that my home province, New Brunswick, has sanctioned MMA before we do here in Ontario? Not only that, but the city of Moncton will be hosting the first amateur MMA card in the Atlantic provinces when it does so on March 20. This is in addition to the pro MMA event featuring former UFC champ Tim Sylvia scheduled to take place in nearby Saint John, NB, in June that I wrote about just last week.

Now, when I was growing up we always looked to the west – to Ontario and to Toronto, specifically – to lead the way, to blaze a trail and chart a new course in terms of all things trendy, cool or otherwise awesome and necessary for daily living.

I never would’ve thought that tiny backwater New Brunswick – and I mean that humorously and with tremendous affection and the understanding that the entire population of the province is about one-fifth that of Toronto – would be the one to machete its way through the jungle like this. It’s revelatory, as in a revelation, as in a sign of the Apocalypse.