All-Native crew wins biggest lottery ever

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The collective heart of Smithers jumped a few beats when the news broke that someone in town had drawn the biggest lottery prize in Canada, ever. Fifteen million, tax free.

"It was the only six-out-of-six winner for Saturday night across the entire country," B.C. Lottery corporation spokesperson Kathy Kosowan said. "It's the biggest 649 win ever for B.C. and Canada."

Six members of an all-Native Smithers construction crew held the winning Lotto 649 number.

"I couldn't look at the tickets, I was scared to. I didn't want to let myself down," said Garry Stacey, who bought the Quick Pick ticket at Wayside Store in town.

"I looked and jumped about 16 times and hit my head on the roof!"

Before he knew he'd won, Stacey, a carpenter with Gus Poirier Construction for five years, jotted the winning numbers -3 22 31 32 33 39 - on a piece of lumber.

"I had a premonition," Stacey says. "This has to be the luckiest two-by-six I've ever held."

He'll split the pot with Loren George, Medric Poirier and Gus Poirier of Smithers, and Chris Williams and Rodney Tait of Moricetown. Each takes home $2.5 million.

Most of the crew and their wives sat around the kitchen table at Garry Stacey's home near Smithers two days after the win, pumped with excitement, toasting themselves and getting ready for a plane trip to Vancouver to claim their prize.

"We won! We won!" Loren George said, grinning ear to ear.

ZZTop's going to be played at my wedding," said recently engaged Medric Poirier, who had been waiting for payday with an overdrawn chequing account. The day he won, his old pickup's brakes failed. Flushed with cash, Poirier gave away the truck, went to a dealership and drove off a new car.

It was only the second time the crew had bought lottery tickets. George had to persuade them to buy; he even lent two crew members the $5 to buy in.

But even in their excitement, they realized there's a serious side to the win.

"I think we're all going to get out of town, 'cause it's nuts. I was scared to even put my kids in school," Stacey said. "The phone hasn't stopped ringing."

"I'm not sleeping too well," added his wife, Kris. "I'm glad I'm in a small town."

There is a bit of bad luck to the story, though; two other crew members weren't at work the day the tickets were bought. Stacey said the winners have agreed to put in $5,000 each and pay the two $30,000 each.

"Will the crew ever go back to their jobs?"

"Gus wanted us to go to work today," Medric Poirier said, shaking his head. "We've got to finish that job."

The construction company is busy, with a Christian extended care home and women's shelter under way in Smithers and 10 houses in Kirwancool.

Wayside Store manager Dennis O'Coffey said it's the third lottery win in the last six weeks sold at his business.

"It's got to be a lucky machine here," he said after a stream of excited people filed into his small convenience store asking for the winning numbers.

Just last week his store sold a $71,000 winning ticket and a couple of weeks ago someone bought a $44,000 winning ticket there.

The lottery corporation knew almost immediately where the $15 million ticket was sold by cross-referencing numbers, explained the lottery corporation's Kosowan.

O'Coffey said Lotto headquarters shipped the machine out so its memory could be examined and replaced with another.

And with Lady Luck hovering over the store, O'Coffey's already noticed increased Loto sales.