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Grown men brought to tears at Griz Days
There were many tears being shed, noses running and being blown during Fernie’s Griz Days Saturday evening, Feb. 28.
And only one man was left standing (in a full-body fat suit) when the eye-watering and taste bud obliterating Battle to the Bone Wing Eating Contest concluded at The Fernie Hotel.
From the kitchen of the popular Fernie establishment came six rounds of hot wings for the nine contestants gathered.
A couple of contestants wore rubber gloves to spare themselves eyeball agony later in the evening. Each contestant was allowed one beverage for the duration of the contest, which began with the mellowest wings – three per plate. Some chose their favourite beer while others, aware that milk is one of the best things to soothe oral hell brought about by capsaicin, saddled up with white Russians.
All contestants stormed through the first round but they began to step aside in the proceeding rounds, with the final four featuring, first, habanero and then ghost chili peppers to finish off the bravest, with only two left seated at the table heading into the final round.
Long deprived of their beverages, the two finalists suffered as they waited for the final plate of pulsating red wings to arrive. They wore expressions already excused contestants had right before they quit; the look one has when they question their own sanity.
In the end, only one man had the ability to snarf down the hottest of the hot and claim the shiny Wing Eating Trophy, a t-shirt, some other cool swag from Griz Days sponsors and, most assuredly, untold suffering the next day.
That hardy soul? Wes Wilhelm.
He joined his son Dustin as a Griz Days eating champ. Dustin earlier that day captured The Northern Hotel’s Bacon Eating Contest – a savage affair where bacon munchers had to swig ice water at the same time as they wolfed down crisp and not-crisp bacon.
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Photos by Carrie Schafer and Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
