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(Credit: Courtesy Phil Hollis, 2022)
Phil Hollis, right, on stage at the National Hot Wing Eating Contest.
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(Credit: Courtesy Phil Hollis, 2022)
Phil Hollis, center, stands with family and friends at Highmark Stadium (home of the Buffalo Bills football team) where he took third place in the National Hot Wing Eating Contest. They are wearing tee-shirts from the Glens Falls Wing Fest, held in April.
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(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2022)
Phil Hollis celebrates his win at the inaugural "Infernal Wing Eating Contest," during the Glens Falls Wing Festival, Saturday April 30, 2022.
Glens Falls native Phil Hollis took third place at the "Triple Atomic Hot Wing Championship" at Highmark Stadium in Buffalo, New York, over Labor Day weekend. He ate 22 wings in the time the first place winner scarfed 25. They had only 10 minutes to eat at least 25 wings.
Hollis entered the contest by filling out an application to compete, followed by a well-timed call to the “Wing King,” chef Drew Cerza, the founder of the Buffalo festival. Cerza was very impressed with Hollis’ first place finish at Glens Falls’ inaugural Mike “DeeJay” DuBray “Infernal Wing Eating Contest” in April, Hollis said.
"Winning that got me into competing in the national one,” he said.
[Read more about his win last April, here.]
He brought about 15 people, family and friends, with him to the main event. They all wore Glens Falls Wing Fest tee-shirts — “This Clucker is HOT!” they proclaim — donated by the Glens Falls Collaborative. Nancy Turner the president of the collaborative also gave his group Glens Falls branded tote bags.
“It was so much fun,” Hollis said. "I was so proud to represent Glens Falls” at the national championship.
"They were humongous wings,” he said of the Buffalo event. “I had all I could do to eat all of them."
The “triple atomic” contest in Buffalo, with wings that reach five million “scovillle heat units” is actually a bit cooler than the Glens Falls competition which hit six million units in April.
As well, the rules in Buffalo allow the competitor to pull meat from the wing with their fingers and eat it. Hollis blamed part of his third-place finish on that rule. He stuck to eating the meat directly from the bone, but in a text message he admitted that using fingers is a game changer, “But a good strategy by the winners.”
In Glens Falls, after competitors ate the meat directly from the bone and licked their fingers clean, there was the “burn time” that forced the competitor to sit and wait, without drinking or vomiting, for three minutes after they finished their plate of 12 wings. Nine of the wings were 500,000 scovilles, three were six million.
He said this made the Glens Falls competition hotter, since players had to eat more of the hot sauce and had sauce all over their faces by the time they were done eating.
“You have to endure the pain of sauce on your face,” he said.
He joked that he and his twin brother have been training for hot wing contests their whole lives.
He visited family in Buffalo where he learned to eat wings and in Glens Falls continued eating them at places like the Ground Round in Aviation Mall.
Before the big competition in Buffalo, he spent time at Bullpen Tavern on Glen Street in Glens Falls, eating 10 of the hottest wings they had in under 10 minutes.
"I did all my training there," he said.
Hollis is a shift lead at Global Foundries in Saratoga County and he plans to work on the Glens Falls Wing Fest to aid its success next spring.
"I can't wait to see how well we get next year going," he said.
Editor’s Note: FoothillsBusinessDaily.com is a member of the Glens Falls Collaborative and editor Steve Thurston is head of the Wing Fest committee.