Follow pro sports’ pandemic plans and wing it

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/07/2020 (2226 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was 56 years ago that the world became a better and more delicious place for couch potatoes and sports fans such as myself.

It was March 4, 1964, when Dominic Bellissimo and some of his college buddies showed up at his parents’ restaurant, the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, N.Y.

Not surprisingly, the young men were ravenous, so Dominic famously begged his mom, Teressa Bellissimo, to whip them up a late-night snack from whatever was lying around in the kitchen.

Which is when his mom, who owned the bar with her husband Frank, hit on the genius idea of taking some chicken wings — a cheap cut normally thrown away or reserved for stock — and deep-frying them before tossing them in a special, spicy sauce.

“The guys liked them so much that the Bellissimos put them on the menu the next day. Served with celery slices and bleu cheese sauce, ‘Buffalo Wings’ were an instant hit,” clucks the website of the U.S. National Chicken Council.

And that, ladies and gentlemen and kids of all ages, was how the modern deep-fried chicken wing, arguably the most-beloved of all greasy game-day snacks, was born.

For the record, there are other origin stories out there, but the tale of Teressa Bellissimo feeding her son and his buddies is by far the most popular.

I’m sharing this story because — prepare to have a chain of drool dangling from your mouth — today is National Chicken Wing Day, the day set aside on the calendar to celebrate a deep-fried snack that has become the go-to food for watching professional sports.

“Waterfalls of ranch dressing? Check. Gobs of blue cheese? Check. Napkins? Check. An insatiable hunger for the ultimate party food, complete with a willingness to eat far beyond your comfort level? Definitely! Well then, you’re ready to take on National Chicken Wing Day on July 29. Oh, and don’t forget the full bottle of antacids,” Mariah Simank, a publicist with National Today, the internet’s authority on holidays, told me in an email Tuesday.

The chicken council points out the creation of deep-fried wings dovetailed with the rise of sports bars with satellite dishes and big-screen TVs. “Restaurants and bars realized they could charge low prices for the relatively inexpensive protein, and due to the spicy and salty nature of the sauce, they discovered that beer sales would go through the roof when customers ate wings,” the council’s website states.

Of all the things I love in this world, fried chicken wings and professional sports are two of the most important. When faced with a plate of spicy wings, I attack them the way a famished lion attacks a chubby zebra.

“OM NOM NOM NOM!” I will grunt with joy as I reduce the wings to a plate of gnawed bones, which I can then hide in the nearest potted plant or under the couch cushions of whoever happens to be hosting that year’s Grey Cup party.

The powerful link between consuming wings and watching televised sports is undeniable. Earlier this year, the Chicken Farmers of Canada issued a news release stating Canadians would consume an astounding 75 million wings on Super Bowl Sunday.

For those of you who have forgotten Grade 5 math, that translates to roughly two chicken wings for every man, woman and child in Canada, or 53 wings for every single Manitoban, or, even better, roughly 100 wings for every football-loving Winnipegger.

In contrast, football fans south of the border stuffed their faces with a record-breaking 1.4-billion chicken wings during the weekend of Super Bowl 54. That is enough wings to circle the Earth three times. To put that in perspective, if Kansas City Chiefs’ coach Andy Reid ate three wings per minute, it would take him about 900 years to eat 1.4 billion wings.

The point I am trying to make is that we need to celebrate chicken wings today — especially as many pro sports teams are getting back on track in their “bubble cities” — but we should also be aware there is a dark side to the world’s most popular game-day snack.

For example, news reports state Manitoba RCMP pulled a 16-year-old driver over last summer after clocking his Camaro doing 175 km/h in a 100 km/h zone. His excuse for driving that fast — he’d eaten too many hot wings and really needed to get to a bathroom.

The overpowering allure of chicken wings was also dramatically revealed this month in the case of two NBA players who were lured out of the league’s bubble zone at Disney World in Orlando, Fla., by their favourite greasy treat.

L.A. Clippers guard Lou Williams was granted permission to leave the bubble to attend a funeral, but landed in hot water (and a 10-day quarantine) when he was later photographed at an Atlanta strip club, which he visited for an order of “LouWill Lemon Pepper BBQ wings,” which are named in his honour.

And Sacramento Kings centre Richaun Holmes was also forced into another quarantine period when he breached the bubble-zone boundary to pick up a delivery order — chicken wings. “We had a little BBQ/lemon pepper mix,” he later said. “It was pretty solid. They were pretty solid.”

The best news is that our beloved Jets are in their NHL bubble city in Edmonton and will clash with the Vancouver Canucks tonight in their first and only exhibition game of the Stanley Cup qualifiers.

Which means our hockey heroes will be flying again on a wing and a prayer. Mostly that first thing, we suspect.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca