Jonah Palaschak of Flaxcombe watches as his bottle of ice flies toward the stop sign on his way to a first place finish in the Bottle Throw event at the Saskatchewan Redneck Summer Games in Major on Aug. 11.
Kenneth Brown
of The Crossroads
There are few places anyone could go to see a group of people in a tug of war with an antique farm tractor. That was one of the sights on the weekend in Major.
The 11th annual Saskatchewan Redneck Summer Games took place in Major over three days on Aug. 10-12. The weekend includes a wide range of activities and fun such as the Redneck Summer Games, a slo-pitch tournament, volleyball tournament and other fun for the whole family.
That fun includes the Junior Redneck Summer Games held before the adults take their turn at channelling their inner redneck. The weekend also included a live band on Saturday night, a steak supper, a pancake breakfast and door prizes.
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The main attraction of the weekend is the Redneck Summer Games. This year’s games included the Raw Egg Toss, Tug of War, Redneck Relay, Nutstacker, Axe Throw, Bottle Throw, Macaroni & Cheese Eating Contest and Chugging Contest. The Macaroni & Cheese Eating Contest was for kids only.
The Redneck Relay was an interesting event. The relay included four team members pouring water behind them into their teammates’ cups one after the other, drinking lemon juice, tying a raw hotdog around the waist, setting a mouse trap, setting off the mouse trap with the dangling hotdog, blowing up a balloon and popping the balloon between the body of one team member and the next team member in line.
The team of Dylan McConnell of Macklin, and Kyle Endicott, Miranda Endicott and Kyle Johnson of Kerrobert won the relay. The Kerrobert team of James Semilet, Corson Hebron, Brett Mack and Riley Mack proved that Tug of War is a young person’s game defeating their older competition.
The teams of Erin Hoffman and Connor Reinson, and Matt Musat and Cody Waddington tied for first in the Raw Egg Toss. For individual events, Niki Laturnus of Plenty won the Nutstacker, Darcy Weber of Coleville won the Axe Throw, Jonah Palaschak of Flaxcombe won the Bottle Throw and Hunter Johnny, 7, of Alsask won the Macaroni & Cheese Eating. Johnny was declared the winner for being the cleanest, and youngest, contestant.
Matt Musat of Alsask and Chase Fallis of Calgary ended up tying for first in the Chugging Contest. A team called the Whiskey Jerks defeated I’d Hit That to win the weekend’s slo-pitch tournament. Bailey Kemery, the announcer for the games, thanked participants and prize donors.
Weber, one of the Whiskey Jerks who won the Axe Throw, said it was the first time he had been to the games in Major. He said he has chopped a lot of wood in the past, but he had never thrown axes. Weber said he was surprised to win as a rookie axe thrower because it is not as easy as it looks, but the whole team was doing well.
“We all got involved,” he said, adding that he was having a good time and he would recommend the games to anyone and everyone. “I think 90 per cent of our team signed up for something and we’re on a pretty good roll right now.”
In the popular Bottle Throw event, passengers in side-by-side all-terrain vehicles try to toss a frozen bottle of water to hit a stop sign, Palaschak, who won the event, said he could not confirm for sure that he has practiced throwing bottles at signs, but he won.
Palaschak, who was also attending the games for the first time, said the members of his slo-pitch team wanted to sign up for as many events as possible. He noted that he was excited to win the Bottle Throw considering he was winging it.
“I was just hoping for the best,” the champion said, recognizing that he has always wanted to attend the redneck games and he is glad he got to have the experience and proud of his big win. “It’s an awesome time.”
The Nutstacker is a game that involves people trying to stack large metal nuts on top of one another with a chopstick in their mouths. Laturnus said it was her first time staking nuts with a stick, and her whole game plan was to avoid letting the nuts fall on the table. Laturnus said she had no idea what she would be doing when she signed up for the Nutstacker, but she was excited to see the stack standing after the final nut was in place.
Brandon Zimmer, president of the Major Memorial Rink Association, said the village does not have a rink anymore, so proceeds from the weekend go to support the community hall and they also help to support future events and fundraisers.
He noted that organizers were pretty happy with the weekend and the weather co-operated for the most part. Zimmer said there was a good turnout for the games with nine slo-pitch teams and a lot of people participating in the events.
The one challenge, he said, is area producers had started to harvest their crops and it affected the attendance for the games, but several of those same producers ended up at the beer gardens to enjoy the band and the great atmosphere. The band was good and people were well behaved, he said.
Zimmer said there were 130 people at the dance, so it was busy and one of the more well attended dances in the event’s history. He said the proceeds will come in handy because the hall is about to undergo a large renovation project. The event went well.
“I call this one a success,” he said about the event, recognizing that he is blown away by the number of people who sign up for the Raw Egg Toss each year and the games just worked out for everyone involved. “We call this one a win.”
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