To say the  Northern Lites Poker Derby was a success is a minor understatement. They have never seen that many sleds come out for one of their derbies.They had a total of 513 hands sold, in comparison to 183 last year. I have heard estimates of up to 200 sleds involved. The club raised almost $2000 and the 1st place winner received $865. Not bad for a day of snowmobiling. And it certainly was a nice day which was one of the main reasons for the huge turnout. Everyone had been hibernating from the cold for so long that as soon it was warm everyone came out like crazy. I almost wish for another prolonged deep freeze to happen and then a warm up for our derby. I’m not sure if it is worth $2000 or not though.

We did not too bad on our end for the day with 44 breakfasts served and some various other things throughout the day and into the evening. We were finding that a lot of people were confusing this derby with our derby in February and thinking that we were running this one. They would ask us questions about the checkpoints and derby route and I couldn’t help them much since I didn’t really know where things were going. Things got so busy in the morning that I didn’t even get a chance to find out much details and they ran out of maps by the end of the morning. We are hoping that the confusion doesn’t affect the attendance at the Rubber Ducky Derby. Last year mother nature gave us a nasty day with -40 and full out blizzard conditions, so we are due for a nice day this year. With this year’s derby landing on Valentine’s Day we decided not to do the Bud, Spud and Beef dinner that we have done in the past.  There are so many other things going on and a lot of people will be going out with their sweetie so we didn’t want to end up with a whole bunch of left over beef. We will just be doing our regular menu for that day and will stay open in the evening as long as there are people here to order.

Here are a couple pictures that I was able to get while registration was going on.