Every year, we reward those guests who decide to prepay their full trips.  The reward is an extra 5% discount over and above other specials (Customer Loyalty discount, Opening week discount).  The deadline for this prepayment discount is Feb 28th of every year.  We just wanted to take the time to remind you that if you would like to take part in this special deal, there are only 3 days left!  Call the office to make arrangements, and see you at Aikens this summer!

Aikens Lake has a long history of supporting local charities in and around Winnipeg. One common link between these charities has been their involvement with kids. That’s why it was a natural fit when one of our clients, Mr. Dan Koshowski of the Winnipeg Free Press, asked us if we would be interested in helping out the Children’s Wish Foundation! It seemed like such a natural fit, we couldn’t resist!

Last night at the annual “Casino Royale” evening for the Children’s Wish Foundation, there were 300 supporters of CWF in attendance. Everybody enjoyed great food, a silent auction, and play-money games of blackjack, Texas Hold’Em,
and roulette. However, the “pièce de résistance” was the live auction. A trip for two to Aikens was auctioned off, and the pot was sweetened even more because the trip was to accompany Jonathan Toews, a local hockey hero at the World Jr tournament last month and the 3rd overall selection in the NHL draft last year! The bids were fast and furious, and in the end nearly $3,000 was raised through the auction. The winner was thrilled as he was going to bring up his 23-year old son, who also has a passion for hockey!

An interesting side-note from the event was that one of the speakers was a Wish Parent who got the opportunity to bring his young son to Florida… his son has cystic fibrosis. We had a great discussion with him, and he thanked us immensely for our involvement with the Boomer Esiason Foundation. We look forward to hosting our second annual “Shootout” to benefit the Boomer Esiason Foundation in September this year! Hopefully the research will allow those two to return to Florida many many times in the future!

We’d like to thank the Children’s Wish Foundation for allowing us to support such a worthy cause. Thanks also to Mr. Koshowski for getting us in touch with them and also with Jonathan Toews. I am sure that Jonathan is just as excited to come to Aikens as the auction winner is! We are all looking forward to hosting everyone this summer and we know that all of the money raised went to a very worthy cause!

The finals for the Voyageur Games went on Saturday afternoon. Dave and Dan, both in their 2nd year of competition, had qualified for the finals with their successes during the Thursday night competition. However, when all 16 competitors gathered on the floor before the competition, it was obvious that they were in tough. With all of the weeknight winners standing side by side, you could say that there was alot of beef standing there! Most of the competitors had at least 2″ and 50lbs on them… some of larger competitors had 8″ and 150lbs on them! They tried valiantly to overcome their many “David vs. Goliath” battles, but came out on the short end of almost all of those. We are proud of their efforts and look forward to the competition again next year!

It was with great anticipation that the staff of Aikens Lake was looking forward to the “Voyageur Games”. The Voyageur Games are an annual event held during our big winter festival here in Winnipeg, the “Festival Du Voyageur”. The festival is a celebration of the fur-trade era and of french-canadian and metis cultures.

If you’ll remember we actually held our own personal games at Aikens back in September. Dave and André were the two winners that night, and so they got to compete under the “Aikens Lake” name at the games last night. However, they weren’t the only guys from Aikens to compete… Dan was able to compete for “Turner Consulting”, which was a cool twist of fate… Dan’s parents were Mr. Turner’s neighbours and good friends about 20 years ago! In another twist of fate, the competitor for Budweiser sponsors didn’t show up, and so Jay volunteered to fill in his spot only minutes before the competition started! So, with four Aikens guys out of 16 competitors we were sure to get a good show! We found out that of those 16, two were former champions of the Voyageur Games!

The games started around 8:00 PM and Gerry had the honor of co-hosting the evenings festivities for the crowd of about 150 people! Aikens had 4 tables reserved and we had a contingent of over 30 people cheering on our guys! The first event was leg wrestling, where our competitors didn’t fare that well. In fact, nobody won too much until the third event, the pillow fight! Our guys matched up against each other several times and it can be quite entertaining to watch them wail away on each other! In the pictures above you see Dan hitting Andre in the gut with a big swing! Andre actually ended up knocking both Dan and Dave out of that event, but couldn’t beat one of the former champions in the finals. The next event was the barrel tug-of-war, and again our guys did well and ended up squaring off against each other several times. Dan ended up winning several rounds before bowing out in the semis. The last event, and one where our guys have alot of experience, was the wood cutting! Dave was able to reach the finals in the event with 10-second cuts (you’ll notice Jimmy is cheering Dave on with his front row seat), but lost to a former champ in the finals as well.

After all of the scores were tabulated, we found out that both Dave and Dan had qualified for the finals, which are being held on Saturday afternoon. Check back soon to see how the guys did!

We are going to be attending the Phoenix International Sportsman’s Show! Although we are a bit of a last minute entry, it only made sense for us to be there. Our partners live in Phoenix and we donate several trips to various Arizona charities, so we figured it would be a great fit to add the Phoenix Sportshow to our schedule! Chris and Rick will take care of manning the booth during the show which runs from March 9-11 (Fri-Sun). We had attended the show once or twice in the past, but it was a small show in a seedy part of town. However, this year the show has a new venue. It will be held in Glendale at Cardinals Stadium… the brand-spanking new retractable roof stadium which is the home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals! If you are in the area, please don’t hesitate to come and visit us at booth #336 near the entrance!  If you can believe it, the parking will be free (and there is wireless access on the floor!!!).  Enjoy the show!

If you are a regular reader of these postings, then I don’t have to tell you about the hugely successful 2006 PWT Aikens Lake Celebrity Shootout! Since the event, we’ve received alot of positive feedback, and everyone involved wants to make the 2nd annual an even bigger event! This year, it will be held on the same week in September, with the dates being Sept 16-21 (tournament days are the 19th and 20th). It will once again mark the end of our operating season at Aikens, and what a way to go out!

Last year’s event was incredible, especially considering that we had never hosted one before, and so there were bound to be a few hiccups and speedbumps. Thankfully we didn’t encounter too many of these. This is why the 2nd annual seems to be that much better already! Everybody now knows what to expect! The PWT pros are fired up for a chance to come back up, and In-Fisherman has already planned to have this included once again in the 2008 programming.

However, the biggest benefactor in all of this will once again be the Boomer Esiason Foundation for Cystic Fibrosis. As they explained to us, it is always tough to make money for the foundation on the first year of any event, especially the larger ones.  This is why it was so incredible that they were able to raise money (and over $100,000!) on last year’s inaugral Shootout. This year, with the DVD video available and the recognition the event now has, they feel that they are going to be able to raise some mega-money for the foundation through their corporate networks! We wish them the best and are very happy to once again be able to contribute to the efforts of the Boomer Esiason Foundation in finding a cure for Cystic Fibrosis!  Stay tuned for more updates as the event gathers momentum for 2007!