It was a surreal experience just answering the telephone for Sharon Jabusch on Thursday afternoon.
Her phone rang shortly after 3 p.m. and on the other end of the line was Kelsey Knowles, a staff representative of the Prince George Spruce Kings. She was calling from 2693 Links Drive and, said Knowles, that was now going to be the Jabusch address.
Jabusch did not scream in delight or faint in disbelief, but there was some silence at first and some befuddlement. To be fair, what Knowles had to tell her could scarcely be believed on first telling - that the Jabusch family was the proud owner of the 2015 Spruce Kings show home worth more than $530,000. But if they thought it was someone pulling their leg, they soon had all suspicions put to rest when their names were announced on local radio stations, congratulating them on their win.
Another call had to be made from the Links Drive show home on Friday. Dana Eliason also got a call telling him he was the winner of the Spruce Kings 50-50 jackpot worth $40,000.
The other big winner in these two lottery events was the community-owned Spruce Kings organization. The BCHL team sold out the show home and the 50-50 tickets, but it took the final week to do so.
"We were pretty nervous about a week ago, but we are feeling great now," said Lu Verticchio, the team's business and marketing manager. "We had an extra thousand tickets for the show home this year, but we did sell them all and in the end we probably could have sold another 100 or so. It puts us in a great position. We rely on those lotteries. The show home by itself is worth about 65 per cent of our overall budget, and with the 50-50s we do, it goes up to 75 per cent."
The show home lottery is now in its 35th year which makes it, according to Verticchio's research, the longest running home lottery in the province.
Selling all 9,500 show home tickets also fills the Spruce Kings public goodwill and awareness accounts. A large public presence running headlong into playoff season is what the lottery also accomplishes. People get excited about the possibility of winning the luxury house on the outskirts of Aberdeen Glen Golf Course, and tickets were purchased all over the broader region as well as from within the city.
"It creates a huge buy-in from the public for our team, and that is throughout the province," Verticchio said. "It raises Spruce Kings awareness, people get invested in the team when they buy a ticket, it really does give us a provincial profile. Our post on Hell Yeah Prince George got 22,000 shares. I couldn't believe it. We have local media that really gets the word out about the team for the community, but that's the kind of scope that goes provincial. We hear all the time from expats from this community who still have a strong connection to Prince George and to this team."
This year's show home was already in place when the team's business department launched it for the lottery. Next year's show home will be purpose-built. Scheck Construction will break ground on the 2015-16 lottery house in April.
Arrangements are being made now for Sharon and Cliff Jabusch to get the keys and sign the necessary papers to move into their brand new home as soon as possible.
