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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Georges St-Pierre returns to his native Canada to fight Carlos Condit at UFC 154. (Josh Hedges/Getty Images)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;ST-REMI, Quebec -- Sitting in a restaurant in northern Vermont enjoying a nice lunch and a much-needed break from my hours-long drive to Montreal, it occurred to me that a little further along my route I would be passing through the area where Georges St-Pierre grew up. The UFC welterweight champion is often referred to as a Montreal fighter, and the crowd at the Bell Centre will surely make him feel like one when he\u2019s introduced before his title defense against Carlos Condit in the main event of UFC 154 on Saturday night. But GSP is no city boy. He actually hails from the vast Quebec countryside tucked between the St. Lawrence River and the U.S. border.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pulling the smart phone out of my pocket while I waited for dessert to arrive -- you\u2019re allowed to have a little something sweet in the middle of the day, unless you\u2019re trying to make weight for a UFC fight or something -- I quickly scanned some online articles about St-Pierre\u2019s youth and came upon one about a recent visit he paid to his old high school in Saint-R\u00E9mi, Quebec. Hmm, I thought, if it\u2019s not too far out of the way \u2026&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And then, yup, to locate the land of GSP, I used my GPS.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I\u2019m not sure what I expected to see when I pulled into Saint-R\u00E9mi, a tiny city of around 7,000 tucked into a landscape of farmland, small industry and windmills, lots of windmills, in southwestern Quebec. I guess I envisioned \u201CGo GSP\u201D window signs in storefronts, maybe even a banner strung across a downtown street proclaiming \u201CHome of Georges St-Pierre.\u201D&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There was nothing, though, no visible acknowledgement that one of the greatest mixed martial arts of all time -- a three-time Sportsnet Canadian Athlete of the Year -- spent his formative years here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I saw a bunch of guys gathered outside an apartment building down the block from \u00C9cole Pierre-B\u00E9dard, where GSP returned not long ago to talk to students about his school chin-ups record, which still stands, and the bullying he went through while in school. I wondered whether any of these men on the apartment building stoop were the ones who\u2019d pushed GSP around back in the day. I decided not to bother them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Right across from the school I saw an elementary-grade kid walking with his book bag and, imagining him to be of the age where he might have a GSP poster on his bedroom wall, considered pulling over and talking to him. But then I thought better of being that guy who pulls his car to the side of the road and rolls his window down to talk to a school kid.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I ended up at a convenience store in the center of town. As I walked up to the cash register with my bottled water, I noticed that among the staff gathered was a young man with a buzz cut, wearing a black T-shirt with some combative-looking logo across the front. He looked like what half of the Bell Centre crowd will look like on Saturday night. He\u2019s my man, I thought.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI understand I am in the home of GSP,\u201D I sid to the woman behind the counter as I fumbled through my Canadian coins to pay for my water. She stared at me blankly. It turned out, as I learned when I look it up on my iPhone upon returning to my car, that 96 percent of the Saint-R\u00E9mi population speaks only French. The young woman took my money and gestured toward the black T-shirt guy, who it turns out is among the community\u2019s bilinguals.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CWhat was your question?\u201D he asked.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI asked about this being the home of Georges St-Pierre.\u201D&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now it was his turn to stare at me blankly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThe mixed martial artist,\u201D I said. \u201CThe UFC.\u201D&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He said something in French to the woman. She said something to him. I understood \u201CSt-Pierre\u201D and nothing else.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CHe\u2019s not from here,\u201D the young guy said to me. \u201CHe\u2019s from Saint-Isidore.\u201D&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As soon as he said it, I realize that I\u2019d heard that many times before. Georges St-Pierre, Saint-Isidore, Quebec. But I\u2019m confused. Did I get the high school thing wrong? Was I in the wrong part of the province?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CWhere is Saint-Isidore?\u201D I asked the buzz cut guy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He shook his head, as if to say, \u201CI don\u2019t know.\u201D Then he asked the woman and quickly turned back to me. \u201CShe says it\u2019s 10 minutes from here.\u201D&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;How could someone have never heard of a place that\u2019s 10 minutes away? Well, I suppose you could if that place is just a tiny village in the countryside, as Saint-Isidore is. Back in my car, I head in that general direction but, at a sign pointing the way into the center of the village, I stay on the windmill-lined main road to Montreal, where the TV stations will be all GSP, all the time, and the outside of the Bell Centre will draped with a huge banner depicting St-Pierre and Condit. Inside the building where the Canadiens are locked out, it\u2019s going to feel like a GSP home game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;\u2014Jeff Wagenheim\u00A0&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/boxing/counter-punch/2012/11/17/digging-into-the-quebec-roots-of-ufc-welterweight-champ-georges-st-pierre>