Aikens rocks the "Voyageur Games"

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!