In The Beginning

In the summer of 1995 Dale had the good fortune of participating in the St. John, New Brunswick 24 hour relay. The team he was on were the 'Hot Toddies'. The team t-shirt was displayed a cartoon of some bloke in snorkel gear lounging in a hot tub with the caption 'Hot Toddies'.

One day Pete asked, "What does it mean? What are the Hot Toddies?".

He explained that it was a team shirt for a 24 hour relay event on the east coast. He went on to explain the concept of a 24 hour relay to me.

Pete's only response, "Wow, I wish they had something like that in Calgary."

Only a short time later and by complete accident, Pete discovered Calgary had a 24 hour relay. At that moment there was little doubt that we had to enter a team. The only problem: we needed a name. A good name that would earn a bad reputation. A name that would live in infamy.

What should we call ourselves? After many attempts to define our team we arrived at an old intramural team name from our highschool days. The Apocalyptic Squiddies were founded in 1999 with Pete as our first captain.

Busting Loose

Inexperienced and fresh-faced we arrived at the fun run that first year ready to run for the cause. We were young with no idea of what awaited us. We were committed to putting in a good performance in the run. Sure, we planned to have fun, down a few beers and feast on BBQ meats. Little did we know that a team of scrappy veterans would ruin us with their roguish love of alcohol, midnight mischief and petty larceny. There was no sleep to be had that first night. We raise a glass to the Bust Loose team of 1999.

Midnight Cowboy

The second night, drunk and weary, we fell into our respective sleeping bags and slept. Our run was over. We would earn no more laps towards our already respectable total.

That night we slept. We slept like we had never slept before. A bobsled could have gone careering through the center of our gargantuan tent and it would not have woken us. A thousand drunkards could have relieved themselves on the condo, we would have slept unphased.

I remember waking the next morning to Robbies voice outside the tent. He was excited about something that had happened in the night. I burst out of the tent to find out what it was. Robbie reported that we had somehow earned an extra 20 laps in the middle of the night. After polling the team to see if anyone had gone out in the night we eventually learned what happened from Scott.

A tourist from the US was driving through Calgary and saw the lights at COP. Curious about what was going on he pulled into the park and met some of our team members. After visiting with the team this mysterious tourist decided he needed to stretch his legs. Scott gave him a team number and pointed him in the direction of the track and went to bed himself.

No one knows who the stranger was or how to thank him, but he will always be remembered as "the mysterious tourist who walked an extra 20 laps for our team".

That year, our team was defined. We would be a team built on having fun. We would work hard for the cause before the relay and play hard at the relay.

Pouring The Foundation

Given the great success of that first year we knew had to continue. The 2000 through 2002 events consisted of an ever changing team. As word spread about the team we had many participants join us for the weekend. Out of those first few years we developed a team of a dozen core members with as many as another dozen fringe members. It was a time of growth for our team. Our tentropolis grew from a few single family homes to a duplex and a condo. Aside from a major rain out in 2002 our core members had shown the commitment to take the team to the next level. The only question was, "What is the next level?"

Nice Tentacles

2003 was to be our 5th year of participation in the event. We decided it was time to show the rest of the relay that we were a team. Many teams had t-shirts to represent themselves. That would be nice, but we knew we had to go bigger. Our t-shirts had to more than just a t-shirt. They were to be our costume. That year we unveiled the squids! Dangling around our legs were our long pink tentacles. Wanna touch? Check out our photos.

Champions Defined

Our team continues to evolve. Champions have been crowned:

• Stacy as the baton design champion
• Tim as the first ever Washoe champion
• Dave as the reigning, two time, Washoe champion
• David as the three time Fundraising champion

And in 2006, the entire team was deemed to have the most spectacular campsite of the relay.

We intend to defend this title in the 2007 event. Bring it on!