The departure area at the Ottawa International Airport. (ERROL MCGIHON/QMI AGENCY FILE PHOTO)

A man with “award-winning” calves faces a minimum of three years in prison after he was convicted Tuesday of trying to board a plane at the Ottawa airport with a handgun in his checked baggage.

It didn’t help that John Laponsee, 48, was a terrible liar.

“During some of the more obvious untruth he actually blushed,” Judge Robert Selkirk wrote in his decision.