While urging the city to do something to honour NBA MVP and local product Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, two recent authors of letters to the editor made an interesting point: Hamilton has only awarded a key to the city once in its history.

Really? Who got it? Russ Jackson? Boris Brott? Nathan Cirillo? Martin Short? Some other hero of this town?

Nah. Professional wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin.

“What did Stone Cold do to get one?” asked former mayor Larry Di Ianni.

That’s an excellent question. Seems he came here in the fall of 1998.

And?

And nothing. He showed up in town to perform and was promptly handed what some might argue is any city’s highest symbolic civic honour by then-mayor Bob Morrow.

Stone Cold Steve Austin salutes the crowd of more than 2,000 wrestling fans at a rally at c

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