What was that? That would be the 2011 medallion hunt zipping by you.

Once again, congratulations are in order from the Cooler Crew to the finders of the 2011 Winter Carnival Treasure Hunt. Veteran medallion hunting mother/daughter pair, Mary and Molly Hermes, along with Molly's boyfriend Dan Murphy uncovered the puck in the area of the old ski jump at Battle Creek Park at about 2:30 this morning after a mere seven clues. In a hunt that had many of the masses in Como Park until the release of clue 7, with its Battle Creek anagram, this years finders managed to line everything up correctly to come up with the full $10,000 prize!

In telling their tale, the finders created a sad story for another hunter somewhere. After searching within a cavern-like root structure from an under-eroded tree, a tree which had already had its snow removed by a previous hunter, Molly stated it was literally sitting on top of the snow as she sat down next to it.  Presumably that root system was where the puck was planted, and in an effort to hurriedly clear the snow, some other hunter inadvertently discarded the puck, and the prize. Incidentally, that person's story is in our Wall of Shame.

Let this be a lesson to all of us for next year. Don't ever give up. Don't look at a potential hiding spot and discard it without checking. And finally, don't just toss the snow anywhere because you may just be tossing out the baby with the bath water as they say.

As I write this, without the benefit of having the official explanations, or the last five clues, I'm also editorializing the clues for this site. For some of them, I'll have to wait until the official list comes out from the paper. But for others, man, for the first time in a long time the clue writer gave us a really good set of clues, just the way we like 'em. I just hope the explanations don't go and ruin the look.

Congratulations to Mary, Molly, and Dan!