Bret Hart just got to help put his legendary father’s name on a pretty permanent piece of Calgary history. The Hitman joined his family for the official opening of the Stu Hart Memorial Bridge, and the location made the tribute especially personal.
According to the Calgary Herald, the new eastbound Stu Hart Memorial Bridge officially opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on November 10. Bret was there for the ceremony alongside members of his family, including his daughter and grandson, as Alberta honored the late Stampede Wrestling founder. Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister Devin Dreeshen explained that naming the bridge after Stu was a way of recognizing what the Hart family has meant to Calgary.
“The Hart family has done a tremendous job of putting Calgary on the map through wrestling and Stu Hart was really the leader of that effort. That’s why we thought it would be wonderful to be able to name it after Stu Hart and to bring the Hart family together to honour a Calgary legend.”
Stu founded Stampede Wrestling in 1948 and became the patriarch of one of professional wrestling’s most famous families. He passed away on October 16, 2003. The bridge itself is part of Alberta’s Highway 8 twinning and bridge replacement project. The first bridge was completed in 2019, with the new twinned bridge now joining it as part of a $28 million project that Dreeshen said was completed on time and on budget.
For Bret, though, this wasn’t just about having his father’s name slapped onto a piece of infrastructure. The area around the bridge was actually a major part of the Hart family’s childhood, as they regularly traveled through it while heading toward Bragg Creek during the summer. That made Bret pretty emotional about just how fitting the tribute turned out to be.
“It was a big, big part of our lives and the fact that they’re honoring my dad with a bridge just speaks the right message about my dad that he was a guy that kind of bridged a lot of things. He was very strong, very solid as a rock kind of guy and I just think it would mean so much to him. It’s just so fitting that it’s a bridge.”
Dreeshen also revealed that Bret told him the ceremony meant a lot because it brought the Hart family together again.
“Naming this after Stu Hart, Bret told me that it was really special about bringing the family together and showing that the province of Alberta really does love the Hart family because of everything the Hart family’s done for the province.”
Bret also found himself thinking about the summers he spent traveling those roads with his brothers and sisters. Decades later, he was standing in the same area watching his father become a permanent part of it.
“I think of really happy memories I have with my brothers and my sisters, and just to be standing here now in remembrance of all that as a salute to my dad and everything he did for the community just and the fact that it’s a bridge is just perfect. I think it’s the perfect thing to name after my dad.”
Stu Hart’s influence on wrestling has lived on through Stampede Wrestling, the Dungeon and generations of wrestlers who came through Calgary. Now his name is going to live on somewhere considerably harder to miss, and Bret getting to officially open the bridge alongside his daughter and grandson made it a pretty fitting multi-generational Hart family moment.
What do you think of Alberta honoring Stu Hart with his own memorial bridge? Let us know what you think in the comments.
