A Canadian soldier is ambushed — in an Ontario bar.

“This wasn’t two guys on the ice dropping gloves and going, ‘OK, let’s go’,” Master Cpl. Collin Fitzgerald told CTV Ottawa on Tuesday.

“This was an attack — a sneak attack. To blindside a guy … and hit him with an object, there’s something wrong.”

What motivated this surprise attack?

“They were saying ‘What kind of hero are you now?’,” Fitzgerald’s mother Arlene told CTV News. Bystanders pulled the attackers off Fitzgerald and his friends drove him to hospital.

“If it was true that they said that, then they’re ignorant,” Fitzgerald said.

The weapons instructor at CFB Trenton, recognized by Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean on Feb. 19 for braving enemy fire in Afghanistan, had his foot broken in three places and needed 10 stitches to close a cut above his right eye.

Fitzgerald, 27, also suffered a broken nose and two black eyes in the Friday night attack.

Fitzgerald was attacked because he went to Afghanistan to fight terrorists.

“Collin was safer fighting the Taliban. At least he saw the enemy coming, or knew the enemy was there,” said his mother. “They are just total cowards, nothing but snakes,” said Gerald, Collin’s father.

One of the miscreants has been arrested, and will be charged with aggravated assault.