Chilling Out Spokane Man Wins Contest That Lands Him In The Far North For A Red Hot Chili Peppers-Violent Femmes Concert
This summer, it was virtually impossible to watch TV, listen to the radio or flip through a magazine without being bombarded by Molson Ice Beer ads promoting the Labor Day Molson Ice Polar Beach Party sweepstakes.
They appeared everywhere, hyping a contest in which 50 lucky winners and their guests would board a Russian icebreaker in the arctic and sail to a chilly destination, to be entertained by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Violent Femmes.
With a contest that was not only open to all of North America but had a multitude of ways to enter, the chances of winning were about as likely as a tropical day at the North Pole.
Spokane’s Keith Reger gave it a shot, however. He filled out a couple of entry forms at a restaurant and dropped them into a box.
About three weeks before the Labor Day weekend, Reger was contacted by local radio station KAEP (105.7 “The Peak”). The station, which sponsored the contest locally, informed him that he had, indeed, won.
He was shocked.
“I thought my friends were playing a joke on me,” says Reger, 32.
The Thursday before Labor Day, Reger and his wife, Toni, dusted off their winter jackets and scooted off to Toronto to rendezvous with the other 49 winners.
Friday, Aug. 30, they flew to Resolute Bay in Canada, about 200 miles shy of the Arctic Circle. There, they hopped aboard the 65,000-ton ship.
The weather when they arrived in Resolute Bay was hovering in the teens, just right for a party in the polar.
Of all winners, Keith seemed most enthusiastic about the below-freezing weather.
“I was a dedicated Polar Beach Party person; I wore shorts pretty much the whole time,” he says. “Everybody was taking pictures of me, going, ‘You’re crazy. I can’t believe you’re wearing shorts.”’
Fortunately, Reger didn’t get frostbite.
In the days leading up to the Sunday, Sept. 1 concert, the 50 winners frolicked in the arctic weather, playing beachball baseball and having barbecues. Plus the ship actually had to plow through an ice field.
On Saturday, the contestants stopped at some small islands and visited the graves of some of the region’s first explorers.
“One of the funny things was there was a Russian that had to stay there the whole time by the graves with a rifle in case any polar bears tried to approach us,” Reger says.
Because weather was extremely poor on Sunday, the concert wasn’t held on the deck of the ship as originally planned. It was moved to a warehouse in Resolute Bay.
No one seemed to mind, though, Reger said.
So, considering the insane amount of buildup by Molson, how good was the show?
“The Violent Femmes were exceptional,” Reger says. Lead singer Gordon Gano’s parents will be happy hear the news. They live in Spokane.
“(Gordon) is so neat. I actually got to talk to him for a while,” Reger says. “The Violent Femmes were great. The Red Hot Chili Peppers - I don’t care for them at all. They were very arrogant.”
On Labor Day, Keith and Toni returned to the more hospitable climate of Spokane. Reger, however, is ready to go back. “It was an unreal trip,” he says. “It was great.”
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