More than 100 of the best arm-wrestlers in Alberta will be pulling for pride and trophies May 25, when the Airdrie Arm Wrestling Club (AAWC) hosts the 2019 provincial championships at the Best Western Hotel in Airdrie.
The event, which acts as a precursor to this summer’s national championships, will be the first time the Airdrie-based club has hosted the provincial tournament since 2002.
“It’s going to be big,” said Stew Foster, founder of AAWC and president of the Alberta Arm Sport Association.
“I’d like to invite everyone out to watch what we believe is an incredible sport. There’s a lot of animosity at the table. You can have two guys who are best friends, but when they get to the table, they can be worst enemies. But it doesn’t matter who wins or loses – at the end of the day, they’re still friends.”
Foster, a multi-time world champion in the sport, will be the head referee at the event. He has been involved in competitive armwrestling for four decades.
“Every little kid, even back in public school, would challenge their friends to an armwrestle,” he said. “Of course, as you get bigger and into your teenage years, everyone wants to show their prowess. It’s a true gentleman’s sport.”
AAWC, which formed in 2015, holds semi-weekly training sessions in Foster’s basement. A welder by trade, he converted his basement into an armwrestling gym, complete with three regulation-size tables.
While the club’s number of active members fluctuates, Foster said he usually has a dozen or more “pullers” working on their technique every session, while he coaches and provides tips.
“This has been a huge part of my life for 40 years,” he said.
Since September 2018, Foster said, AAWC members competed in tournaments throughout Alberta, including ones in Hinton, Grande Prairie and the “Mayhem at the Mall” at West Edmonton Mall in November 2018.
West Edmonton Mall will also be the location of this year’s Canadian National Championships in July, according to Foster. He said the mall’s entire Ice Palace will provide the setting as more than 500 pullers from around Canada battle it out.
According to Foster, AAWC members who will compete at the provincial championships include former national champion Dale Kotyk, twin brothers Ryan Tanner Maschinter and Foster’s wife Stacey, who is a national armwrestling champion herself, as well as a former body builder.
“The [club’s members] have been training really hard,” Foster said.
The provincial championships will be held in the Diamond Room of the Best Western Hotel. Weigh-ins take place May 24 from 6 to 9 p.m. and May 25 from 9 to 11 a.m., according to Foster. The competition will kick off May 25 at noon.
