Newry, ME – On Saturday, Oct. 6, Sunday River ski resort in Maine will host its most competitive North American Wife Carrying Championship (NAWCC) to date with a playing field of 50 couples that includes the 2009 North American champions, the 2012 Nova Scotia champions, and the four-time Wife Carrying World champions.

Inspired by Finnish wife-carrying folklore, the winners of the NAWCC take home the wife’s weight in beer plus five times her weight in cash.

Former champions competing in this year’s event include the 2009 NAWCC champions, Dave and Lacey Castro from Saco, Maine; the 2012 Hants County Exhibition champions, Josh Mulholland and Nicole Vanzutphen; and the four-time Wife Carrying World champions, Taisto Miettinen and Kristiina Haapanen.

The North American Wife Carrying Championship is part of Sunday River’s Fall Festival Weekend that also features free outdoor concerts, 30th Annual Blue Mountain Arts and Crafts Festival, the Mountain Raid trail races, the Taste of Maine and more. NAWCC draws thousands of spectators to the resort each year to watch competitors battle it out on a custom-built 278-yard alpine course complete with wooden hurdles, sand traps, and the always-popular “widow maker” water hazard, all set out on Sunday River’s snowless slopes.

Competing couples do not need to be married, but must comprise of a man and a woman, and both must be 21 years or older. Either partner can be carried and method of carry is up to the competing couple.

Couples compete two at a time, for time, until the top two fastest times have been determined. Those two couples with the fastest times then go head-to-head for the North American Wife Carrying Championship title and prizes, which include the wife’s weight in beer as well as five times her weight in cash.

Winners of this year’s event also secure a spot in Sunday River’s 2013 North American Wife Carrying Championship.