Some friends will be chewing the fat this week as they fly to the national wrestling championships in New Brunswick.
However, Cayley’s Josh Skory won’t be chewing too much fat — he’s got to make sure he makes weight so he doesn’t come up against his pal, Brendan McKeage, of Cochrane.
It’s a strategy that worked well at the high school provincials where Skory won gold for the host Highwood Mustangs at 47 kilograms and McKeage won at 50kg last month in High River.
“Josh contacted me and said: ‘I think we should go different weights,’’’ McKeage said. “I slept on it and thought. ‘I don’t want to cut a lot of weight and Skory has done a lot of work this year and he deserves to win.’’’
With McKeage, a defending Canadian national champion, having won all the matches so far between the two friends, it was good strategy for Skory.
The pair have wrestled more times than two tomcats hanging around the same litter-box. While McKeage has dominated, Skory stunned the Cochrane wrestler by briefly gaining control in a match in Calgary in February when both wrestled at 50kg.
“At Winston Churchill we had a really good match,” McKeage said with a laugh. “I was really surprised when he got the point. “I said: ‘Hey, Josh, that’s good,’ but when I got back up I was a little angry.”
They don’t get mad at each other often. They became fast friends two years ago when Skory made the Team Alberta Canada Games team in 2013.
“I first met Josh when he made the Canada Games team and I met him at Jasper camp,” McKeage said. “I remember thinking: ‘This guy’s a pretty good wrestler.’”
The friendship grew stronger this season as Skory practiced every Sunday with the Cochrane Cowboys Wrestling Club, as well as with the Calgary Jr. Dinos and the Okotoks Wrestling Club at least once a week (“My mom does a lot of driving,” Skory quipped).
“I realized really early on in the season that Brendan was the guy to beat this year so I went out to Cochrane to practice with them,” Skory said. “We just trained and competed this year and it really helped me.
“It has really given me a bar to try and jump over. If you are always wrestling guys you can beat, it doesn’t challenge you — and Brendan definitely gives me a challenge.”
McKeage, a Canadian bronze medallist at 42kg at the Wrestling Pan Am Games in Brazil in 2014, has been pushed by Skory at practice as well.
“I have definitely seen an improvement in Josh’s wrestling the last two months and it has also helped me get better,” McKeage said. “Whenever we practice, we wrestle 100 per cent for the full six minutes. I always have to be on my toes when I wrestle Josh.”
The pair also know how to celebrate. After shedding the weight and with the two friends each having a gold medal, they dined on huge Alberta steaks at the Skorys’ Cayley area farm after the high school provincials.
Skory will wrestle at 46kg and McKeage 50kg at the 2015 Cadet/Juvenile Canadian wrestling championships for 15/17-year-old wrestlers in Fredericton April 10-12.
