Bigger Canadian icon - Wayne Gretzky or Terry Fox?

[McRpro]

Back in 1982 it was just a statue on the side of the road. It's up on top of a cliffside on the opposite side of the road now. Has been since roughly the mid '90's. There's a big parking lot and touristy stuff there.

 

[The Panther]

Back in 1982 it was just a statue on the side of the road. It's up on top of a cliffside on the opposite side of the road now. Has been since roughly the mid '90's. There's a big parking lot and touristy stuff there.

Okay, thanks. What you describe is how I remember it.

Hm, not sure how I feel about the touristy aspect...

 

[FerrisRox]

The statues in front of BC Place in Vancouver are very cool. There are four of them, in succession, the first one is life size, the second about 25 percent bigger, the third, 50 percent bigger and the final one 100 percent bigger representing how Terry's stature and importance grew the longer he ran the marathon of hope. A cool detail is that the direction the statues are "running" in points directly to Stanley Park, where he would have finished the Marathon of Hope had he survived.

 

[Killion]

Fun Fact: I grew up around the Thunder Bay area(where his run stopped, and a statue was erected). When I was a little kid I used to call him Terry The Fox. Hehe

...ok that wasn't very fun.

Even more fun?.... That mass UFO siting over Mount Mckay not long ago..... Mother Ship that blotted out the sky witnessed by 1000's including Cops, ambulance drivers etc... uh?..... True Story..... Hovered for over 2hrs before vanishing vertically straight up in the blink of an eye....

 

[reckoning]

What Terry Fox accomplished was absolutely mind.... blowing. I could barely watch it without the tears welling up. Still just thinking about it... lonely stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere, one leg... anyone who's ever done any serious distance running... well, my God. Knowing that his chances of living through it let alone long very slim indeed well.... what can you say?

It was beyond heroic & really opened peoples eyes to the insidious creep of Cancer that until then was itself on the march rather quietly. And in the years that have followed continues to claim far far too many lives. The older we get, the more people we know who's lives have either been touched by or ended by the disease. Its just everywhere. Some of us its touched personally or likely will.... So yes, to me Terry's life, what he accomplished, transcendent of Sport, well beyond. Were talking Sainthood. Totally selfless. What he did to open peoples eyes to the abilities of those with handicaps & or Cancer.... well..... words fail. Beyond an Icon.

Very well said. I love pro hockey as much as anyone else on this board, but nothing any player has done on the ice compares to what Fox did. He took the initiative to run the equivalent of a marathon every day to raise money to fight cancer. On one leg.

 

[Laphroaig]

The answer is Wayne Gretzky. What Fox did is admirable but his accomplishments are somewhat exaggerated. People conveniently ignore the fact that ample evidence indicates that when fundraising was going poorly in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his "run".

 

[The Panther]

The answer is Wayne Gretzky. What Fox did is admirable but his accomplishments are somewhat exaggerated. People conveniently ignore the fact that ample evidence indicates that when fundraising was going poorly in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his "run".

Yikes...

I'm not touching that one.

 

[Johnny Engine]

The answer is Wayne Gretzky. What Fox did is admirable but his accomplishments are somewhat exaggerated. People conveniently ignore the fact that ample evidence indicates that when fundraising was going poorly in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his "run".

Please cite a source if you're going to make that claim.

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

Please cite a source if you're going to make that claim.

L'abandon de Terry Fox - Les Archives de Radio-Canada

It's in French

September 2nd 1980

"Terry Fox believed it yet. But his marathon will not take him to Vancouver as planned. On September 1st, he must abandon his race in Thunder Bay, Ontario. His cancer spread to his lungs. The young man is struggling to breathe and even more to run. He is flown back to British Columbia where he resides."

"The news does not make much noise in Quebec. The Téléjournal of September 2nd devotes him a topo presented by Bernard Derome. It must be said that Quebec did not get excited about the one-legged runner."

Maybe this is the reason why I had never heard about him at school as I said in a previous post.

 

[JackSlater]

It's true that Terry Fox didn't garner pandemonium everywhere he went in the beginning. It wasn't heavily advertised and it wasn't as though the internet and social media were there to help word spread rapidly. I've pretty much never seen a negative Terry Fox take before though.

 

[A4T1L6]

Terry Fox ainec

 

[Sprague Cleghorn]

Im gonna agree with Fox not being as big in quebec than the rest of canada. I lived in montreal up until grade three and id never heard of terry fox. I went to two different elementary schools there and there were no terry fox runs. Then i moved to edmonton, went to three different schools there and they all had terry fox runs.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

FWIW I doubt that Gretzky too is as iconic in Quebec as he is in the rest of Canada.

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

FWIW I doubt that Gretzky too is as iconic in Quebec as he is in the rest of Canada.

You are not wrong, Gretzky is well-known here because he is Gretzky and hockey in Quebec is nearly a religious thing but no sportive figure will ever be as iconic as the great Maurice Rocket Richard here in Quebec.

 

[CokenoPepsi]

The statues in front of BC Place in Vancouver are very cool. There are four of them, in succession, the first one is life size, the second about 25 percent bigger, the third, 50 percent bigger and the final one 100 percent bigger representing how Terry's stature and importance grew the longer he ran the marathon of hope. A cool detail is that the direction the statues are "running" in points directly to Stanley Park, where he would have finished the Marathon of Hope had he survived.

What happened to the original monument?

 

[FerrisRox]

What happened to the original monument?

It's out in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

 

[Nino33]

The answer is Wayne Gretzky. What Fox did is admirable but his accomplishments are somewhat exaggerated. People conveniently ignore the fact that ample evidence indicates that when fundraising was going poorly in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his "run".

Please cite a source if you're going to make that claim.

L'abandon de Terry Fox - Les Archives de Radio-Canada

It's in French

September 2nd 1980

"Terry Fox believed it yet. But his marathon will not take him to Vancouver as planned. On September 1st, he must abandon his race in Thunder Bay, Ontario. His cancer spread to his lungs. The young man is struggling to breathe and even more to run. He is flown back to British Columbia where he resides."

"The news does not make much noise in Quebec. The Téléjournal of September 2nd devotes him a topo presented by Bernard Derome. It must be said that Quebec did not get excited about the one-legged runner."

Maybe this is the reason why I had never heard about him at school as I said in a previous post.

Is there any evidence for the claim that "in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his run" ?

I thought this was the reason the claim was being asked for a supporting source, and not just the idea Terry Fox didn't make as much noise in Quebec (which given the circumstances at the time isn't very surprising, and isn't really meaningful in a discussion about icon status IMO)

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

Is there any evidence for the claim that "in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his run" ?

I thought this was the reason the claim was being asked for a supporting source, and not just the idea Terry Fox didn't make as much noise in Quebec (which given the circumstances at the time isn't very surprising, and isn't really meaningful in a discussion about icon status IMO)

Yes it is and especially when some claimed that in Canada we are all supposed to learn about him at school and know who he is which is wrong at the end. It's a debate about who is the bigger Canadian icon and Gretzky is more well-known than Fox.

 

[FerrisRox]

The answer is Wayne Gretzky. What Fox did is admirable but his accomplishments are somewhat exaggerated. People conveniently ignore the fact that ample evidence indicates that when fundraising was going poorly in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his "run".

"Vast portions" of his run in Quebec he was transported by van? It's alway been reported that he averaged 42 kilometres a day through Quebec on the Marathon. It was in Quebec that the Marathon had its biggest surge financially too. His run hadn't been reported on in Quebec and he was very discouraged because he wasn't raising any funds there and then Isadore Sharp, the CEO of the Four Seasons hotel chain was touched by Fox's efforts when he met him in Montreal. Sharp not only made a major contribution himself, but he challenged the rest of corporate Canada to get on board and make financial contributions.

Please provide this evidence that is being "conveniently ignored" about him cheating the marathon. It should be very easy for you to do, seeing as how say there is "ample evidence."

 

[hitman9172]

The answer is Wayne Gretzky. What Fox did is admirable but his accomplishments are somewhat exaggerated. People conveniently ignore the fact that ample evidence indicates that when fundraising was going poorly in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his "run".

This is literally the first time in my life I've seen someone try to disparage Terry Fox.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

This is literally the first time in my life I've seen someone try to disparage Terry Fox.

see? the internet really does make the world smaller

 

[Nick Hansen]

This is literally the first time in my life I've seen someone try to disparage Terry Fox.

Regardless of his claims, it seems the French-Canadians didn't really take Fox to their heart as a community which is strange to me. You'd think his legacy goes beyond that.

 

[Nino33]

@Claude Pepe Lemieux
I'm asking for the second time now (and FerrisRox has asked to), is there any evidence at all for your claim that "in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his run" ?

You did say there was ample evidence for your claim, I couldn't find even a mention of it when I looked online for a bit yesterday...can you provide any at all?

 

[Tarantula]

Regardless of his claims, it seems the French-Canadians didn't really take Fox to their heart as a community which is strange to me. You'd think his legacy goes beyond that.

Quebec is vastly different, it isn't just another province like most of mainland Canada. Hard to explain, but Quebec is like a different society in many regards due to their history and such. Snarled bit of Canadian history there, too much to go into on this forum. Their license plates still have "We Remember" on the bottom in french of course, referring to the Plains Of Abraham, which was like a couple of centuries ago, non?

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

@Claude Pepe Lemieux
I'm asking for the second time now (and FerrisRox has asked to), is there any evidence at all for your claim that "in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his run" ?

You did say there was ample evidence for your claim, I couldn't find even a mention of it when I looked online for a bit yesterday...can you provide any at all?

I didn't really search about this claim that in the Province of Quebec he was transported by motor vehicle through vast stretches of that portion of his run because I don't care at all about Fox to be honest.

But it wasn't MY claim as you said but Ed Wood's. What I said in this thread was about the fact that we DON'T learn at school about who Fox is in the province of Quebec which is true and some other posters have mentioned it too.