It was a night to remember for all Jets fans but one fan in particular will never forget the night that Patrik Laine scored five goals. In case you missed any of them here they are:
But these five goals didn’t just help the local NHL squad win a hockey game. I mused when Laine scored his third that I wondered if the Safeway Score and Win contest runs for all 82 Jets games because the way the Jets sniper was playing five goals seemed plausible. But as this game was on Sportsnet and the only time we ever really hear about the contest is during the TSN broadcast I wasn’t sure if it was active.
When I went to the Safeway Sobey’s Score and Win page it said this:
One lucky Sobeys Safeway shopper is selected as a potential million dollar winner before every Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg game! Prizes are awarded when a single Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton or Winnipeg player scores 3, 4, 5 goals in a single game.
That would seem to indicate that it did cover all games and in fact there was a list of tonight’s games with peoples names on it. For the Jets/Blues game that name was Christopher Haley and this Manitoban’s night (and life) was made thanks to a 20 year old Finn from Tampere.
Prior to this evening’s game the closest someone on the Jets had ever come to making this happen was when Mathieu Perreault scored four goals in 2015 and Gail McDonald from Brandon, Manitoba fell one goal short of winning the million.
Following the game Patrik Laine was asked if he was aware that scoring five goals had made someone a millionaire and the Finnish sniper replied “hopefully I made someone very happy.”. I think it goes without saying that this is the case.
Quite a night for one lucky Manitoban. The payout is an annuity paying $50,000 per year for 20 years.
As always stay tuned for the latest Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose news by keeping it locked to illegalcurve.com and on social media including Twitter | Facebook | Instagram. And you can follow me on twitter as well (@icdave).
