So many young boys growing up in Toronto spend their free time ice skating on frozen ponds and their idle hours dreaming about one day being a hockey star. Their first pair of shoes are attatched to a pair of blades, and they look to their fathers for not onlt parental guidance, but also for ice hockey lessons and early-morning rides to the rink. On saturday nights they gather around the TV with the rest of the family and watch Hockey Night In Canada.
    These are the adolescent rites of passage of a canadian boy, but they weren't they rites of young Christian Cage.
    Growing up in Toronto, he knew he wasn't like his friends. They loved hockey. He preferred watching the fights. They skated. He wrestled.
    "I watched wrestling all the tiime," Cage said. "I used to go to the Maple Leaf gardens for the WWF matches. Other kids used to say to me, 'You're going to the Gardens? There's no game tonight!' Then I'd look at them and say 'It's wrestling stupid.' I never thought that it was fair that when people talked about the greatest Canadian athletes, they'd never talk about Chris Benoit or Bret hart or the Rougeaus. It was always Gretzky, Limeaux, Howe. these people were ignorant. They didn't know any better."
    Cage knew. From the time he was 11 years old - that was the day they had wrestling in gym class and cage pinned a kid twice his size - Cage knew he wanted to be a wrestler. Funny thing is, he never thought his dream would come true.
    "There was never any other choice to me," said the 6'1", 225-pound cage. 'yeah, I went to Humber College in Toronto and got my degree in social science, but I've known what I wanted to do with my life for a long time. I went to wrestling school during my senior year, got trained by Ron Hutchinson and Sweet Daddy Siki, and started my wrestling career right after graduation."
    It was 1995. By then, most of Cage's childhood buddies had long put aside their dreams of playing in the NHL. Most of them never got as fas as the Canadian junior laagues. But here was Cage, living out his dream and knowing he still had a long way to go. The independents are a long way from the WWF and WCW.
    After wrestling in a few battle royals, Cage made his singles debut on June 7, 1995 and battled to a draw against Zakk Wyld on a Fighting Arts Mat Enterprises card in Toronto. Before long, Cage embarked on the independent circut grind, wrestling wherever he could get a check. He now wrestles regularly for Insane Championship Wrestling in Detroit and has also toured the Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia independents and wrestled for the International Wrestling Alliance in Winnepeg, where he was National Champion. In April, he beat Johnny Smith for the World Pro Wrestling heavyweight title.
    But he hasn't made many friends along the way.
    For Cage, the harsh moment of realization came on an ICW card. Sexton hardcastle and Joe E. legend - known as Sex and Violence - had been arguing over Cage, who kept interfering on Hardcastle's behalf. They agreed to wrestle with the stipulation that if Legend won, Cage would leave ICW and if Hardcastle won, Legend would leave ICW. Cage interfered in the match, sparking a three-way brawl. That's when he looked over his shoulder and saw one of the ICW promoters smiling.
    "They were happy," Cage said. "Those scoundrels were glad that we were fighting. Then I remembered how when we first came to ICW, they insisted that we bill ourselves from New Jersey, not Canada. That's when I realized they were trying to keep Canada down so we wouldn't show up the American wrestlers there. It's like what's going on with Bret Hart in the WWF. He's showing Canada is superior to the U.S."
    Cage, Legend, Sexton and Rhino Richards formed Thug Life, rebilled themselves as from Canada, and embarked on a mission to prove Canadian superiority over the U.S. Meanwhile, Cage continues on his mission to establish superiority over all other wrestlers. He already has the aerial moves down pat and he can finish off an opponent with s alingshot moonsault, a Texas cloverleaf, or an octopus abdominal stretch. Now he wants to add power.
    "If I'm wrestling a smaller guy, I want to keep him on the mat and overpower him," Cage said. "if it's a bigger opponent,I want to keep things moving. If you want to make it in this sport, you've got to do it all. Look at Bret and Benoit. They can do anything. So can I."
    Cage is confident, maybe even a little arrogant. his goal is to one day make it to the WWF, WCW, ECW, or even Japan.
    "It doesn't matter which one, " Cage said. "One day they'll all be coming after me. Then I'm gonna sit back and laugh, and when they ask me where I'm from, I'm just gonna sing it out loud... Oh, Canada!"