This weekend Corina and I hosted the2008 Beer Olympics . Corina and her Beer Olympic Committee put together put together quite the great event. The whole concept of it was to have teams of 4-6 people each representing a country, facing off in a variety of events. Originally we had as many as 7 teams in the event when it was first proposed a couple months ago. But due to prior engagements, weddings, funerals, family illnesses and whatever else we only managed to get 3 full teams together for the event. This was quite frustrating, as many people waited until the last week or two to inform us that they couldn’t come, by which point we had already ordered too much beer. The days leading up to the event just seemed to point to things not going well, but the whole time Corina remained confident things would turn out well.

The day of the event started out ominous. The weather was overcast with impending rain and thunderstorms in the forecast. It rained in the morning which I’m sure scared away a few fence sitters away from showing up. But as the day went on the sky opened up and the sun started to shine as everyone started to roll in, which was a relief. We rented a keg fridge for the event and it gave us some grief. It’s lucky I have a few friends with some mechanical know-how and that Corina’s Dad had a garage stocked with parts that we were able to get the C02 canister and tap working properly. The rental place will be getting an earful about that. Anyhow, once that got sorted out the beers started flowing. We got 2 kegs, one a low-carb beer and the other was Adly’s Ale from the Lion’s Brewery in Waterloo.

We started the day with teams from Canada(my team), England and the United Arab Emirates. The first game to be played was the Beer-stacle course relay. We had to do 3 rotations of the hula hoop, then weave through some pylons, then take 5 swings on the swings, then go down the slide and finish by walking a rope line to the finish, all while carrying a beer. Each member of a team had to do one of the stages then pass off to the next in the relay. I managed to do the swings and not spill a drop until the handoff. We ended up winning that event, even though we had the slowest time because of having the most beer and no point deduction penalties.

Next was the chicken foot competition. We had to pick up a weighted paper bag from the middle of a marked out area with our teeth. You couldn’t put your hand down or your second foot down or you were out. This one was not Canada’s strong event, given all of us on the team are at least 6’1″. We tried hard, but couldn’t beat Mike from UAE’s bag picking up abilities.

Next event was the boat race. 4 members from each team had to chug a beer. This one was barely a competition. All 4 of us can chug beer and were finished in probably 40 seconds. Our team was born for that event.

We then did the arm wrestling match, which required each competitor to hold a beer while arm wrestling. When the beer Olympics were originally devised there was supposed to be 1 female per team, but it ended up there was only 1 team(England) with females on it. We still did the competition, but England got top points by default while UAE and Canada fought for first and second. Here was some boobie grabbing distraction tactics used by England to distract Rob from Canada. The highlight of this event had to be when Rob took on my father-in-law Howard in an arm wrestling match. Howard humoured Rob for a bit before putting him down. It was rather amusing.

Next we did the Dizzy Bat race. After apparently not doing the race right the first time, we had to do it a second time. I think in both cases Canada won again. At this point Robb decided to challenge me to a pound off, which I’m not sure served any purpose other then drinking more beer. I won the pound off, but at this point the fact I had dinner, just run 2 dizzy bat races and then chugged a boot full of beer caught up to me and I had to yak. Being the first to puke won me the light weight award for the evening.

The next event was the wheelbarrow race. 2 members from each team had to race to the end wheelbarrow style, where the wheel part of the barrow had to finish a cup of beer through a straw. Canada yet again prevailed at this one.

We then had the final secret event, which was baby bottle beers. 2 members from each team had to drink beer from a small baby bottle. Mike from UAE managed to be the first one to just bite the nipple off and drink the beer, at which point I think everyone did it.

In the end it was Canada crushing all challengers to take home the big trophy. United Arab Emirates take silver, while England takes bronze. It was great fun and I think everyone had an absolute blast. The rest of the night we just tried to put a bigger dent into how much beer was left in the kegs, had a bonfire, played some horseshoes and chilled out. We even got in some late night Guitar Hero action. About 10 people crashed at our place or in tents in the backyards. Already everyone is talking about next year. So I guess consider this your advanced notice if you want in for next year. I think we learned a lot from planning this event. A lot of people were scared away by the event because they thought it would be all about chugging beer, but that wasn’t the case at all. I figure after all the fun that was had this year we’ll definitely be able to get a bigger turn out for next year. We didn’t manage to break even on the event, but all the same it was well worth running as an excuse to get all our friends together and drink beer.