Mathieu Perreault*had a special night. He scored four goals for the Winnipeg Jets in their 8-2 drubbing of the Florida Panthers. If he had five, a fan would have maybe had a chance to win $1 million dollars courtesy of the super benevolent corporate food empire Safeway!
Huzzah!
We were tipped off to this by our friends at Illegal Curve when Perreault just missed on a third period breakaway, which could have netted the fan, Gail MacDonald, the Dr. Evil of prizes in Canadian dollars.

Alas, this all sounded way too good to be true.*
The rules on Safeway's $1 million Score and Win:
Should any Vancouver Canucks’, Calgary Flames’, Edmonton Oilers’ or Winnipeg Jets’ player score five (5) goals in one (1) game (excluding goals scored during a shootout) during the 2014-2015 regular season or playoffs (as recorded by the NHL official game scorer), one contestant, through a Regionalized Random Draw of all entries received (as hereafter defined), will qualify to win an annuity paying $50,000 per year for 20 years. Regionalized Random Draw shall mean that: residents of British Columbia are eligible for the Canucks’ draws; residents of Northern Alberta are eligible for the Oilers’ draws; residents of Southern Alberta are eligible for the Flames’ draws; residents of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario are eligible for the Jets’ draws. The payout is governed by Revenue Canada’s rules for Prescribed Annuities. Payment of any and all taxes, or other charges associated with the $1,000,000 annuity prize are the sole responsibility of the potential prize winner.
So it's not exactly $1 million lump sum. But still, $50,000 CAD over 20 years is pretty good, no? But actually there was another catch.*
7. Potential winners will be judged and prizes awarded based on correctly answering, unaided, a time-limited, mathematical skill-testing question and signing a liability/publicity release. Potential winners that do not meet these conditions will not be eligible to receive a prize ...
So really, she wouldn't have won a million spacebucks Tuesday after all. Just the chance to win that amount paid out over 20 years if she answered a mathematical skill-testing*correctly. Is this "Monty Python" or something?*

If you want to know whether Safeway had enough money to pay Gail $1 million outright instead of adding a 20 different mechanisms on how to lessen its immediate cost burden take a look at its finances here. A hint? Safeway has enough money.
But MacDonald was in good spirits following the game on this interview on TSN 1290*in Winnipeg:
“You win some you lose some,” she said, later adding “I certainly won’t forget number 85 (Perreault) for a long time.”
Perreault on the other hand was contrite and felt bad he couldn't get number five per Illegal Curve.

"That’s crazy, I wish I knew. In the third it was a 7-2 game and we were just closing it out," he said. "I didn’t know, so I almost feel bad."
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
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