Groundhogs and Wings

On this Friday, February 2nd, all of Pennsylvania is abuzz with two major festivities occurring today. One is known nation-wide, the other is more of a local thing. But both draw big crowds at their respective events, and the attendees at both of them have most likely been drinking in the hours preceeding the events.

The first celebration is known all across North America as Groundhog Day. While several states lay claim to “the groundhog”, everybody else knows that “the” groundhog that matters on this annual tradition resides in Gobblers Knob, PA, and his name is Punxsutawney Phil. Punx gets yanked from his cage…I mean, makes his appearance…and if he sees his shadow, winter lasts six more weeks, if he doesn’t then the winter will be ending on time. Turns out that this year Punx did not see his shadow, so we’re supposed to expect the winter to end on time. We’ll see if that works out.

And yes, Groundhog Day is also a hilariously funny movie starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, and Chris Elliott.

The other big event happening in PA today is the Wing Bowl. I guess the Wing Bowl is actually more of a Philadelphia thing than a Pennsylvania thing. The Wing Bowl is a gluttonous Buffalo wing eating contest that is attended by thousands. Now in it’s 15th year, the Wing Bowl was started in 1993 by two DJs from Philadelphia’s WIP AM Sports Talk station because they decided that if no Philadelphia sports teams could bring any kind of championship to the city, then they would. So they came up with this Buffalo wing eating contest, called it the Wing Bowl, and that first year had only a couple of contestants, was held in a hotel meeting room, and the winner won a Hibachi grill.

Now, all of these years later, the Wing Bowl is held in the Wachovia Center, the arena where the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team and the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team play. Tickets always sell out about 5 weeks in advance, and most of the 20,000+ who show up for the 5am doors-opening have already started drinking. The event begins at 6:30am to lots of pomp and circumstance, with each of the dozen or so contestants being announced to the table like a boxer to the ring, their posses accompanying them on the walk, the crowd cheering, or booing, accordingly. Once seated, there are a couple of rounds of 5 minutes of wing eating, and people are eliminated based on consumption. In the end, one person wins, and now instead of getting a Hibachi grill, they win a car! Not a bad prize I’d say.

So folks, the state of Pennsylvania just gets crazy early in the month of February each year. Don’t you wish you could just live here? Of course, this being Philly and all, you'd expect that the eating contest would be cheesesteaks. Hey, maybe the city of Buffalo should have an annual Philadelphia Cheesesteak eating contest.

Whatever, I'd rather just have a Groundhog burger.

UPDATE at 3pm on February 2, 2007: The winner of the 15th Annual Wing Bowl was the returning champ, Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, from San Jose, California. Joey was also the winner of last years event, and word is that next year, the winningest Wing Bowl eater, known as El Wingador, will face off against Jaws Chestnut. Wow. The world waits in anticipation.