Rainy River couple win $40,000 trip from a case of beer

Ken Johnston
Editor

Dreams can come true in a case of Blue!
Sparkie and Linda Holmes of Rainy River purchased a case of Labatt Blue on Saturday at the Rainy River liquor store and won a dream vacation on a scratch ticket in the case.
Sparkie, who turned 40 on Thursday, said they could not believe they had actually won the prize which is an all expense paid trip for them and two other friends to New York City, Miami and New Orleans valued at about $40,000. “We were sitting under a tree the day before and said it would be great to win that prize. But we never thought we would actually win.”
They said they had scratched many of them before and none said “You Win” like the ticket did on Sunday afternoon. “In fact there were many we did not even bother to scratch,” said Sparkie.
At first they were in disbelief. Then Sparkie read the complete rules on the bottom of the case of beer and discovered there was only one winner out of the 1,479,050 tickets printed. “Those are pretty big odds,” said Sparkie Tuesday, “and who would think the winner would come from Rainy River!”
His wife, Linda said she had thrown a 40th birthday party for him a few nights before and they had quite a few case of Blue there and none were winners. “I picked up a case on Saturday and we opened it Sunday. What a nice birthday present!”
Sparkie, who says he has been “true to Blue” since he was old enough to drink, says now the hard part it deciding who to take. He would like to take his son Shaun, but he is only 20 and all on the trip must be 21.
A friend of theirs said they should try and take the cash value for the trip, but Sparkie said, “No way! This is a once in a lifetime trip and I have never won anything in my life!”
The prize includes return airfare on a private jet from Toronto International Airport, two nights accommodations for four people, $1,000 US spending money, front of the line access to a minimum of 6 clubs, transfers between selected cities and transfer to hotel each day. The Holmes said that they are not sure when they will be going as that is to be determined by the contest sponsor, but it will be some time this fall.
For a day or so they were worried that they would not be able to claim the prize as the rules say the winning ticket must be in Toronto by September 3, 2002. However after calling the toll free number on the ticket they were told that as long as they had it to them by September 20, 2002 they would qualify as the winners.
The couple is so excited about the prize noting, “We will never get to do something like this again!”