For 18 weeks, Prince George Citizen readers were eligible to enter a weekly draw to be one of 18 lucky winners in the Great Canadian Hockey Tour contest ,where the grand prize winner would travel to seven Canadian cities to watch seven NHL hockey games from Feb. 2 to 13.
The prize included two tickets to each game, double room hotel accommodation for 10 nights and air fare. The top prize package was worth about $10,000.
On the flip side was the opportunity for The Citizen advertisers to have a chance at the same grand prize, too, where those sponsoring the contest would be entered into a separate draw.
The grand prize draws took place at Westwood Pub, one of the sponsors of the contest, where finalists gathered to see if they were the lucky winners.
The draw was done in reverse where each of the 18 finalists received a prize like a gift card, until it came down to where there was only one slip of paper left in the box.
The Citizen reader who won the grand prize was Gary Milligan, who was unable to accept the prize because he cannot travel as he was injured recently in a traffic accident.
Milligan turned to the second prize winner who received two tickets to the Tom Cochrane concert at CN Centre on March 6 and offered the grand prize to her.
Donna Zellman said she was more than happy to accept Milligan's generous offer and quickly traded prizes with him.
"I felt so bad for him that he was unable to go," said Zellman, who is a Canucks fan. "What a gracious thing for him to do, to let me take it. I was in shock actually. It's going to be a great thrill to go."
Zellman said she was quite happy with her tickets to Tom Cochrane.
"But to find out I was able to go on the hockey tour is mind boggling," said Zellman, who will be taking her husband Rudy along on the trip. "I'm so excited over this."
Donna and Rudy are big hockey fans, and watch their grandsons play regularly at local rinks.
The schedule for the trip sees the Zellmans in Vancouver on Thursday, Feb. 2 when the Canucks go up against San Jose, then Sunday, Feb. 5 they are in Montreal to see the Canadiens play Edmonton. On Tuesday, Feb. 7, they are in Toronto as the Maple Leafs takes on Dallas, then over to Ottawa on Thursday, Feb. 9 as the Senators takes on Dallas.
On Friday, Feb. 10, they'll be in Winnipeg to see the Jets play Chicago. The Zellmans will follow the Black Hawks to Edmonton to see them play the Oilers on Saturday, Feb. 11 and the last game will be in Calgary as they take on Arizona on Feb. 13.
It's a tight schedule.
"We got our itinerary and it does look like we get some time in the bigger cities of Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa," said Zellman. "It looks like we have a day to explore in each of those and then the last three days are a fairly tight schedule."
The couple has never been to Winnipeg but has traveled to every other city.
"It'll be fun to go back and explore a bit more," said Zellman. "I've got orders from our grandsons as to which place they want jerseys from. We're just so excited. This will be a trip of a lifetime for us."
Zellman said she and Rudy will be bringing a Vancouver jersey home for Milligan as a small token of their appreciation.
"It was such an incredibly generous thing for him to do," said Zellman. "I'm so thankful."
The grand prize winner for the advertisers was the owners of The Black Clover, Chris Angus and Troy McKenzie, who also own Twisted Cork.
"We were very surprised because we got there late and we had no idea if our name had already been pulled," said Angus. "We were kind of just sitting by ourselves and it was down to three and then two and they said the Black Clover won and we were like 'what?' So yeah, we were very, very, very surprised we won. It's great."
Angus, who used to play junior hockey, is an Oilers fan and McKenzie, a die-hard Montreal fan, play hockey together in town on what Angus called the old timers' league.
"It should be a great trip," said Angus.
