My Top 10 Childhood Heroes

In reverse order, here are my top 10 childhood heroes:













NUMBER 10: Pavel Bure



Bure arrived in Vancouver with loads of hype, and was one of those rare cases where something lives up to the hype. Bure is without a doubt the best player to ever play for the Vancouver Canucks. He is also, arguably, the most exciting player to ever play in the NHL. If I had been a forward instead of a goalie, Bure would have been my hockey idol, without a doubt.

NUMBER 9: Megatron

I have a hard time putting Megatron on this list, considering who is number 1, but it's hard not to like a guy like Megatron. He personifies pure evil, he wants to destroy the Earth and everything on it, and his lifelong goal is to kill Optimus Prime. Still, Megatron was just so cool, that you couldn't help but love him.

 

NUMBER 8: The Ninja Turtles



I was, like every other kid my age at the time, a pretty big Ninja Turtles fan. They were never quite as cool to me as the Transformers, but they were the next best thing. The original cartoons were great, the movies were great (well, to a 11 year old boy they were), and the characters were cool. Raphael was my favorite, as Leonardo seemed to be too goody-goody, Donatello too geeky and Michaelangelo too goofy. I still remember going to the theater to watch the original Ninja Turtles movie and having to sit in the aisle because the theater was so packed. It's amazing to see the Ninja Turtles still on tv and almost as popular as ever. There's even a new CGI movie coming out this year.









NUMBER 7: Batman



Growing up, when it came to comics, it was either Batman or Superman that reined supreme. To me, Batman was the ultimate superhero. The great thing is, he had no actual super powers. He was just a regular guy who suffered a great tragedy, and dedicated his life to making his city safer for the people around him. Batman wasn't your regular happy-go-lucky superhero, either. He was mysterious, dark and kept to himself. Batman had a secret hide-out (how many kids didn't want their own Bat cave?), he had millions of dollars which to spend on awesome weapons and vehicles and he had a costume that, in comparison to most super heroes, actually looked pretty bad ass. I'm sure every kid around my age dressed up as Batman for Halloween at least once in their life.









NUMBER 6: Bill Ranford



In the early 90's, before I became a huge Canucks fan, I was an Oilers fan. I was just getting into goaltending, and Bill Ranford was my first idol. Ranford had a showboat-like style that I absolutely loved. It's not a style you see these days, where angles and simply blocking the puck is the way of the game. Ranford's glove saves are still on highlight reels to this day. He would swing his arm in an almost windmill-like way to make these spectacular gloves saves. I can thank Bill Ranford for my expensive goaltending hobby, as he was one of the main reasons I became a goalie in the first place.









NUMBER 5: Wolverine



I was a HUGE X-Men junkie as a kid. I owned all the TV shows, never missing an episode. Wolverine was easily my favorite. I'm realizing my trend in favorites, in that they all seem to be the loner, quiet, bad-ass type. Everyone knows who Wolverine is, and everyone knows he exemplifies "bad ass". He takes no shit, he does what he wants, and he doesn't ever pay attention to the rules. The hugely successful X-Men movie trilogy shows I was probably not the only Wolverine fan out there.









NUMBER 4: Spawn



The thing that I liked the most about a superhero like Spawn is that he isn't really a superhero at all. Spawn was originally a man named Al Simmons who used to be a trained assassin for the government. Spawn was killed by his boss, and after making a deal with the Devil, he was returned to Earth 5 years later. Spawn had absolutely no reservations about killing someone who deserved that, and that made him so much different from other heroes such as Superman, the X-Men or Spiderman. If someone tried to get in his way, they were no doubt going to end up dead and dismembered. Spawn was a refreshing change from the usual superhero, and that's probably why I'd rank him as my all-time favorite.









NUMBER 3: The Ultimate Warrior



I still remember the first time I heard about the Ultimate Warrior. I was at my grandma's and my Uncle Ron told me that Hulk Hogan had just lost to some new wrestler. At the time, I knew nothing about wrestling, or the fact that it was fake... but I did know who Hulk Hogan was. This was in 1990, just as the whole neon fad was starting up. Ultimate Warrior was this huge guy, who wear entirely neon wrestling gear. He had long 90's perm hair, face paint, neon tassels on his arms, and these huge wrestling boots covered in leather tassels. The best part about him was his ring entrance. In a time when most wrestlers would walk down to the ring slowly, the Warrior would run full blast down the aisle, run up on the ring, and grab the ropes and shake them like crazy. He would jump in the ring and run around like a man on speed. He would then win his match within minutes. To me he was as cool as it got. It's a shame the neon went out of style so quickly... what a great era that was.









NUMBER 2: Kirk McLean



During the early 90's, I started to become a huge Canucks fan. Being a goalie myself, and just starting to get serious about it, Kirk McLean was the easy choice to be my favorite. He was one of the NHL's best goalies, and his awkward stand-up style somehow worked for him, and enabled him to make some pretty incredible saves. I will never forget his pad-stack save on Robert Reichel in the 1994 playoffs. McLean was a huge contributor in the most memorable time in the Canucks' history, and will forever stay on my all-time favorite players list.









NUMBER 1: Optimus Prime



Every boy that grew up in the early to mid 80's knew who Optimus Prime was. He was the epitome of what a leader should be. He was calm and confident in all situations, and no matter how dangerous the situation got, he always had everyone else's safety ahead of his own. His was the toughest of all the Transformers, and the only one who could step up to Megatron. One of the most shocking and saddening days of my childhood was when Optimus Prime died in the Transformers movie. I remember being in shock, not wanting to believe it, and asking my Mom if it was actually real. Optimus Prime was my generation's version of John Wayne. A stand-up, straight-forward, true hero that no matter what, chose right over wrong in every situation.My name is Matt Gunn. My blog is mattgunn.ca and I do several Top 10 Lists, among other posts.

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