![]() He wanted to make Canada proud, but he also had a more personal motivation to compete in the series. He says he gets blood tests every three months and is still cancer-free. He had just finished treatment and had been cleared by doctors when he saw the call for Canadian contestants in 2022. Hamilton was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and went through treatment for a year, including radiation and surgery. Plenty of patriotic and personal motivation to succeed in competition “I’ve been through all this cancer treatment and I didn’t have enough time to train.” The two teams raced against each other collecting bushels of apples. It was apparently not nearly as tranquil as it sounds. In the seventh episode, contestants had to build gabion baskets and fill them with rocks.īut Hamilton says the toughest challenge, both physically and mentally, took place in an apple orchard in Episode 5. They included cutting scrap metal, using heavy machinery to bag soil, assembling a trailer frame and searching a home-improvement store to find dozens of items. Hamilton can attest that all of the activities were also extremely taxing. The challenges, like the contestants, are tough, practical and down-to-earth. #Pinball life facebook series#A total of 11 competitors went to Hamilton last summer to undergo a series of gruelling individual and team competitions - Hamilton was a member of the “Savage Crew” - that tested their skills, endurance, mental and physical strength and general mettle.Ĭompared to the wild globe-trotting adventures of The Amazing Race competitors, the challenges on Tough as Nails may seem a touch banal by comparison, at least on paper. Hamilton was among the four Canadians who made the cut. My wife always says, if she was on a desert island I would be the guy to go with her because I can MacGyver anything from anything.”Ī longtime fan of the series, Hamilton put his name in when it was open to Canadian competitors for the first time. 2, I’m too cheap to pay people to fix things. 1, I’m too stubborn to give up,” he says. He also restores Coke machines, pinball machines and jukeboxes in his spare time. In his online bio, his occupation is listed as a maintenance supervisor but he has also worked as a mechanic and has generally held a fierce DIY attitude all his life when it comes to all things mechanical. Article contentĪ Montreal native, Hamilton moved to Calgary in the mid-1990s. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The idea behind the CBS series is to highlight skilled, hardworking men and women in blue-collar professions - Season 5 included two firefighters, a contractor, an electrician and an ironworker, among others - rather than the starry-eyed fame-seekers that tend to populate other reality series. ![]() For its fifth season, Tough as Nails was based in Canada for the first time and pitted a group of tough Canadians and Americans against each other in various challenges on real job sites. Series highlights skilled, hardworking men and women in blue-collar professionsĪt the age of 56, Hamilton was the second-oldest competitor after Wisconsin toolmaker Todd Anderson, who was 58 at the time of the competition. ![]() She thinks I did great after everything I’ve been through.” If I could have had three more months of training, I guarantee you I would have went to the end. “All the emotions running through you, it’s unbelievable,” says Hamilton, who is now back in Airdrie. That said, he will appear in the final two episodes in team competitions. He was undone in “overtime,” which had him facing Ohio jack-of-all-trades Kenji Ngo in a challenge that involved filling a hibernaculum with logs and rocks. Activate your Online Access Now Article contentĪs fans know, he made it all the way to Episode 7 as an individual competitor, a pretty impressive feat given that he was among the oldest contestants competing and is also a cancer survivor. If you are a Home delivery print subscriber, unlimited online access is included in your subscription.
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