The Calgary Ukrainian Festival had something new up its sleeve this year: a perogy eating contest. Thirty teams signed up to compete in the eating contest which was also a bit different than others. Rather than one person eating as many perogies as they could, Saturday’s contest was a relay-style competition with each member of the team having to finish a plate of perogies before tagging in the next in line. The winning team, Kalen, Ethan Friesen and Jonathan finished theirs in under two minutes. “Originally [it was] just a joke,” said Kalen. “You know, like, ‘oh, perogy eating contest’, and we thought it was going to be like big amounts, not a speed eating contest. “We’ve been training all week, you know, buying perogy dinners, and you know, just seeing if we could get up there in the ranks, and look at that, we came out on top -- going to be returning champions next year!” Organizers also made sure everything that Calgarians have come to expect from the festival was back for another year. That included dance performances and food. But the festival was also a valuable opportunity for members of the Ukrainian community to engage with each other and get a taste of home. “For a new Ukrainian-Canadian to come to Canada and have no network and no connection and no community, this provides an opportunity for them to find like-minded interests, community organizations, friends, family, what have you, and build those, connect those connections, put down some roots,” said Jordan Biss, Chair of the Calgary Ukrainian Festival. With files from CTV Calgary’s Darren Wright
