Northern Lakes College was the big winner in the fourth annual Community Corporate Challenge. The college team grabbed top spot on the final day of the five-day event with top-three finishes in three of the five events – air band, Spam sculpture and dessert.
The college edged out day-four leader Weyerhaeuser, which also had three top-three finishes on the final day.
Hanging on to third overall was the Slave Lake Health Complex team – whose ‘Like A Surgeon’ air band performance and excellent Mexican salad were just what the doctor ordered.
Unfortunately, the rest of the overall standings were still unavailable by press time, thanks to the chief organizer taking some well-deserved time off. However, the Town of Slave Lake, the Cadastral Group and Atco Electric were all tied at 180 points after four days. Of the three, Atco had the best final day with a win in the main dish portion of the international cook-off with its Greek lamb stew. So in absence of official word, The Leader declares them the fourth place finisher.
The Esso Tigers, in fifth with 160 points after four days, may have surpassed a couple of teams with a second and third place finish in dessert and Spam sculpting, respectively.
But it was Northern Lakes College at the top of the heap. Their air band rendition of Meatloaf’s ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’ earned them the top score of 224 points in that event.
Dressed up as the band ‘Kiss,’ the two-time defending corporate challenge champion Independents put it all out there to take second place in the air band.
There were several excellent air band presentations, but only three could finish in the points. One that didn’t was the Cadastral’s ‘The Gambler’ (incorrectly credited to the Town in last week’s Leader – sorry!). Another was Atco’s swingin’ ‘Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie.’
The week started out with Atco on top and Northern Lakes College tied for dead last in Monday’s relay race. But the college scored a coup that same night by locating one of the hidden letters in the detective challenge. The Town and Health Complex teams got the other two the next day.
On Wednesday the college continued to climb with a victory in ultimate Frisbee. The Town came second and the Independents picked up their first top-three with third place. In the beer barrel challenge the Esso Tigers hosed their way to first place, ahead of the Town and the Independents.
Wednesday saw just one event – the corporate feud. It was a video game along the lines of Family Feud, and the Cadastral Group proved to be the best at it. They picked up 40 first place points, moving them from 7th to 5th place. Weyerhaeuser began its move this night with second place and the Town came third.
Big points were on the line Thursday with four events, and things really started to break Weyerhaeuser’s way. They commenced with an impressive win in the canoe challenge, beating out Cadastral by a couple of seconds in the circuit of The Point Marina. Northern Lakes College kept themselves in the game by picking up third place points.
Then Weyerhaeuser kept up the momentum by winning the paintball challenge, again over Cadastral and NLC. Cadastral looked to move into the top three, but the Health Complex reasserted its right to third place with a big 40 points for second and third place in the Boggle challenge. An Atco player took 30 points for first place and the Independents stayed alive with third place.
In the foosball challenge it was Esso and ATB Financial each earning 30 points and Atco picking up 10.
That set up the final night’s events with Weyerhaeuser in first with 210 points, NLC second with 190 points and the hospital crew in third with 185 points.
The food and air band challenges proved an entertaining and popular way to close out the challenge. Following the announcement of the cook-off winners, everyone got to dig in to the various Mexican, Chinese, Greek, Italian and Southeast Asian main dishes, plus 11 salads and 11 desserts.
The winning dessert, incidentally, was a chocolate torte from a Betty Crocker recipe (confessed after the fact by Pat Potvin).
Reached out of province last week, corporate challenge organizer Karina Pillay-Kinnee said the fourth annual was the “most successful to date.”
It had more teams and more participants, and wrapped up with an evening notable for its creativity and positive energy.
“The last night was especially successful,” says Pillay-Kinnee.

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