A new professional sports league is looking to make waves, and includes a pair of Prince George athletes.
Dan Gallo and Alex Maritsas of Prince George will be joining the Vancouver Wildcats, one of eight teams in the new Team Arm Wrestling Federation.
“This is something completely new to me, in the over two decades I’ve been doing this, this is totally new, so I’m kind of super excited to see how this goes,” said Gallo.
Gallo said there was a tournament he won while he was in high school at DP Todd.
“I’ve always been in good shape, I used to like playing rugby and running and playing sports, I’ve always taken care of myself,” he said.
“Back then, everybody arm wrestled, pretty sure most kids in high school arm wrestle too, and when I got out of high school, the shop I was working at, one of the guys there told me ‘you need to get a hold of Vern Martel, I got a hold of Verne a couple years after high school, started with him, and it just kind of took off from there.”
Alex Maritsas, who’s been arm wrestling for more than 20 years, had a bit of a similar story, with a professional arm wrestler living in his neighbourhood.
“As I aged out of high school, I was just a young punk riding my skateboard in a nice cul-de-sac where they had freshly paved the roads, it was nice smooth skating,” he said.
“One Sunday I just saw a group of guys in a garage and every Sunday I just kept inching closer and closer and closer and found out they were arm wrestling, and the rest is history.”
Gallo said the first pre-season match is set up for March 28th in Calgary.
He added the sport being fast-paced may help the sport take off in a team format.
“When you’re doing super matches, one-on-one kind of format, it can be very exciting to watch, but if a guy’s sitting there all day watching tournaments, sometimes it’s not very spectator friendly,” Gallo said.
“I do believe with this team format, it’s going to be a lot more for the spectator.”
He thinks if this takes off, it could be massive growth for the sport.
Maritsas said he would love to see the sport go to the Olympics.
“The best part about of arm wrestling is it’s an accessible sport, worldwide, with no money down,” he said.
“You can be any age, any gender, any physical fitness, you don’t have to be a specially crafted athlete for this, made for arm wrestling, you pick it up, give it some enthusiasm and some consistency, it can only get way bigger from there.”
There are eight teams in the federation, four from Canada and four from the United States.
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