Mark Hebscher was baffled.

His son Dean, 16-years-old at the time, was hanging out with his buddies and wanted to stump his father and long-time TV sports host. He turned to the Great Canadian Trivia Book, which was written by former London Free Press reporters Mark Kearney and Randy Ray back in the 1990s.

“He asked me, ‘who’s the first Canadian to win an Olympic gold medal’,” Mark Hebscher recalled, “and I said, ‘Easy. Etienne Desmarteau from Montreal. He was a police officer, went to St. Louis in 1904 and won the stone toss or whatever they called it (56-pound weight throw) back then.”