Cormier wrestlers from Memramcook united in the book
IJL – Network.Press – Acadie Nouvelle
The five professional wrestlers from the Cormier family, originally from Memramcook, have not been forgotten. An author from Nova Scotia published a book about them.
Jamie Heap is a wrestling enthusiast. During the past year, he prepared a book called Wrestling with the Cormiers. Sons of Bernadette Doucette and Edmond Cormier of Memramcook, wrestlers Malcolm Cormier, alias Mel Turnbow, Yvon ”The Beast”, Jean-Louis (Rudy Kay), Léonce (Leo Burke) and the baby of a family of 13, Roméo (Bobby Kay) , are illustrated in a work of about fifty pages containing more than forty photographs.
Over the years, Jamie Heap has published a dozen books, most of which are self-published. He is a research associate of the Westmorland Historical Society. He writes for the website Boxscorenews.com and writes articles about the Cormier brothers as part of his job. His texts encouraged him to work more comprehensively and write a book about them.
The book also discusses several wrestlers who competed with the Cormier brothers, including Stu Hart, Frenchy Martin, Rocky Johnson, Dusty Rhodes, Jerry Brisco, Bret Hart, Terry Funk, Harley Race and others.
One of the members of the Cormier family, Richard, son of Yvon “The Beast”, had a chance to see the final product and says he liked what he saw.
“It’s well written,” he says. I learned things I didn’t know,” affirms the eldest of the five children of Doris Loretta and Yvon Cormier. For example, he learned more about his uncle Malcolm.
“I live in Nova Scotia now, and he’s a gentleman who lives not far from here,” she says of the author, who lives near Amherst.
Yvon’s son had the opportunity to box for several years during his life, but he did not engage in wrestling.
“I spent a lot of time with my dad. I worked with horses,” he adds. In his spare time, his father trained horses for carriage races.
According to Cahiers de la Société d’histoire de Memramcook, the four Cormier brothers had long careers as professional wrestlers. After a short stint as a wrestler, Malcolm began refereeing.
The Cormier brothers were active from the 1960s to the 1990s, wrestling in North America, and some of them were even invited to Australia, New Zealand, India and Japan. As was often the custom, they adopted arena names.
With the exception of Léonce, the other four wrestlers from the Cormier family have all passed away.
Those interested in purchasing a copy of the book can contact the author at the following address: jmheap@hotmail.com.
