Thousands of people from all different walks of life were treated to a wonderful display of Italian culture this past weekend as the Caruso Club played host to the 34th annual Italian festival.
"It's a chance for Italians to feel truly Italian and for the Canadians that come to get a taste of Italian culture," explained the club's head chef, Irene Costantini. "All immigrants used to have celebrations in their towns in Italy, religious holidays and things like that, and this is our way of celebrating. It's not so much celebrating a patron-saint, but it's a feeling that we're part of a festival. It's our festival. It's our tradition."
 
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The four-day celebration kicked off on Thursday with opening
ceremonies and Olympic style amateur boxing featuring boxers
from Abruzzo Italy, including Andrea Sansoni and Danilo Creati,
along with their coach, Nando Chianini.
The event was such a success that Gord Apolloni, the head coach
of the Ontario National Training Centre, had the pleasure of
making a special announcement.
"I've been discussing the 35th annual, and next year,
this team will bring a full team of boxers from the Abruzzo,
Italy area here to the Italian festival," he said.
The mayor of the city, David Courtemanche, was also on-hand to
welcome everyone and wish them luck for the rest of the
weekend.
"This is the heart of the Italian community in
Sudbury," said Courtemanche. "The Caruso Club puts on
such a wonderful festival every year and hopefully, you can
stay all weekend and watch the Italians win on Sunday."
This year's festival was made even more special with Italy
advancing to the World Cup Final Sunday against France. That
just happened to coincide with the manager of the club's
decision to start a new festival tradition every four years.
John Cimino, who's been involved with the club for the last
12 years, realized that there were countless World Cup soccer
lovers in the city so he decided to rent a big screen
television so people could come watch the game surrounded by
hundreds of other soccer-crazed fans.
"We rented the screen a month ago because we knew
they'd be in the finals; that's how confident I
was," he joked.  "Honestly though, we were very
fortunate to have Italy in the World Cup finals during the
festival."
"It's a chance for everybody to get together and see
old friends and make new friends, have a drink, sit down have
supper, enjoy each other's company," concluded Cimino.
"You get a sense of pride. We all come from Italian
parents, but my culture is very important to me. Our culture is
our food, our language, soccer, sports; that's what we were
brought up with."
Founded in 1947, the Caruso Club is one of the few current
clubs that belong entirely to its members and the four-day
festival is their largest annual event.
"This annual tradition began in 1972 in an effort to
promote and preserve Sudbury's rich Italian heritage,"
explained the club's president, Tony Nero. "For
decades, this important festival has given the people of
Sudbury an opportunity to participate in our city's Italian
community and its traditions."
