The University of Manitoba’s student rugby team hopes to ride the potato, cheese and gravy train to the top of a national fundraising competition.

The team is the only Manitoba team entered in Smoke’s Poutinerie’s World Poutine Eating Championship: Campus Edition.

“Everyone gets a mark based on how well they market their competition, how many people support them, and how fast they can actually eat the poutine,” explained team member Luke McKim. “I figured our rugby team should have a good chance in terms of speed-eating because we got a lot of big guys.”

The artery-clogging competition is open to university groups from across Canada and each team is tasked with organizing a poutine-eating contest in their home community.

Smoke’s Poutinerie will doll out prizes of $2,500, $1,500 and $1,000 to the top three submissions from across Canada.

The team will use their winnings to pay the transportation costs associated with traveling to matches, and to help kick start a women’s rugby team at the university.

The competition will be held at Hub Pub on the 3^rd floor of University Centre Oct. 13 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Go to poutinerie.campusperks.ca to support the team.