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Written by Lethbridge Herald & Canadian Press
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Monday, January 11 2010, 9:04 PM |
Lethbridge residents looking for an easy answer to next year’s Christmas gift list can muscle out the competition by voting for Lethbridge to fill a square on an updated Canadian version of Monopoly.
Chase Young, a sales associate at the Games Galore store in Park Place Mall, said he still has people ask for the Lethbridge On Board game that featured local landmarks and properties. The game was produced as a fundraiser for Junior Achievement in 2004 and all 3,500 games sold out in less than a month.
“If Lethbridge gets put on (the updated game) I definitely see it having a boost in sales,” Young said.
Competition began this week to pick 20 Canadian communities to fill the squares. The cities will be chosen from a pre-determined list of 65 cities and will be selected through online voting by consumers. Lethbridge is one of seven Alberta cities on the list, including Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, Red Deer and Wood Buffalo.
Consumers will be asked to cast votes until Feb. 7 for their three favourite cities with one vote allowed per day. The website is www.monopolyvote.ca.
Cities not on the list also have the chance to be included since there are two “wild card” squares on the board which will be filled by two cities nominated and voted for by consumers from Feb. 8 through Feb. 21. Details can be found on the website.
The Monopoly Canadian Edition of the classic game, which has sold more than 250 million copies since its launch 75 years ago, is to be launched this summer.
A world Monopoly game was launched in 2008 with three Canadian cities — Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver — earning spots on the board, and Montreal winning the coveted “Boardwalk” space.
While other board games have come and gone over the years, Monopoly has remained a staple.
“It’s still a pretty powerful seller,” Young said, adding the game saw increased sales when the electronic banking version was introduced a few years ago. The electronic version eliminates the need for paper money since players use a debit-style card and card reader to record their transactions.
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