Flin Flon’s Hunter Lee went back to the mat last weekend, earning a silver medal at the Wrestling Canada Lutte Canadian Wrestling Championships.
Lee finished second in a field of 10 competitors at the event, held March 9-12 in Waterloo, Ont., representing the best Canadian senior wrestling has to offer. Lee took part in the senior men’s freestyle event in the 86-kilogram weight class.
Lee’s first matchup came against Ioannis Narlidis - ordinarily a Greco-Roman specialist who made Canada’s national team in that sport in a higher weight class, Narlidis had dropped down to take part in the event. Lee took it to Narlidis early and often, coming away with a 13-0 win and advancing in the bracket.
Next up came the Univ. of Calgary’s Callum McNeice, a former CanadaWest wrestler of the year. Most of McNeice’s competition at the USports level took place in the 72-kilogram division - Lee would be facing competition that was ranging up. Weight class, shmeight shmass, didn’t matter - Lee still defeated McNeice 11-0, advancing to the semifinals.
Up next came a familiar foe for Lee - Andrew Johnson. The two were formerly teammates with the Univ. of Saskatchewan Huskies wrestling program - both were still representing the Saskatoon Wrestling Club at the meet. Lee took advantage of his opposition, winning 10-0 and going to the national final.
There, Lee would face Alex Moore, one of his biggest rivals in national competition. Moore, a wrestler with Concordia University, is currently the top-ranked wrestler in the 90-kilogram division in Canadian university sports. Moore is a Commonwealth Games and Pan-American Games medallist and narrowly missed qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Lee’s momentum would be stopped in its tracks by Moore, who defeated the Flin Flonner 4-0 in the final match. Lee would settle for second, having defeated almost all of Canada’s best competition on his way to the podium.
Lee, a multiple-time Canadian university national champion, international medallist and Canada Games gold medallist, has ended his university wrestling career at the Univ. of Saskatchewan and taken on training in mixed martial arts. Lee has already had a pair of MMA bouts, both ending in wins for the Flin Flon product.
