Luck of the Irish
Michael Young and his wife Marilyn are Cape Breton’s newest millionaires
A Glace Bay couple now has a million new reasons to make Irish stew.
And you can bet they’ll never leave out the lucky ingredient.
It was needing a Guinness beer to make the stew that saw Michael Young, 55, and his wife Marilyn, 50, leave their home about two weeks ago on an outing that resulted in them picking up a $10 Atlantic Lottery X Money scratch ticket and instantly becoming Cape Breton’s newest millionaires.
Michael admits they didn’t sleep that night.
“We were up until about 5:30 a.m.,” he said. “It was a pretty extraordinary day.”
On Thursday, Atlantic Lottery officials held a press conference at Talo Cafébar in Glace Bay where a celebration was held to mark the extraordinary win.
Michael, who has been working at Convergys call centre in Glace Bay in technical support for 16 years, and Marilyn, employed elsewhere in the company as an administrative assistant, didn’t hesitate when asked how their life will change.
“It won’t,” Michael said, adding they both plan to continue working.
“We’ve been together since 1987. We’re well grounded, we’re well established in our hometown. We have a great group of friends, we’ve got a cat, we’ve got a son.
“In five years time we’ll be in retirement and now we can look at it with no worries.”
Michael said it all began two weeks ago on a Saturday, when he came hoem after a few hours at work. He was laying down when his wife asked if they could go out to buy some Guinness for Irish stew they were making the following day.
After leaving the liquor store, Michael thought about going into Sobeys to check a Lotto Max ticket but it appeared busy so they headed to Jack’s Place, a convenience store on Union Street.
Entering Jack’s Place, a customer was getting a huge stack of tickets checked but seeing Michael only had one ticket, let him go ahead.
Normally when he heads in a store his wife usually tells him to pick up a 649 ticket but she hadn’t on this occasion. While waiting, a $10 X Money ticket caught his eye so after being told he won $10 on the Lotto Max ticket, Michael purchased it.
Scratching the ticket later at home he matched one of the lucky seven numbers. But Michael says he’s superstitious when it comes to scratching the prize part of the ticket.
“I know with scratch tickets you start from the far right and if you see something, it’s good.”
The word “million” appeared, then zeros and commas revealing a $1 million prize.
Marilyn didn’t believe him at first.
“I told her we won $1 million and she said ‘shut up.’ I told her we did and she said ‘stop it.’”
“That’s how the day went and it was a pretty extraordinary day,” Michael added.
When asked at the press conference if there were any special purchases planned, Michael had wanted comfortable shoes and showed them off to the delight of friends and family gathered at Talo Cafébar on Thursday.
Marilyn said they will invest and put money away, but a trip to Ireland was definitely in the future.
“I love the pictures of Ireland,” she said, adding she does have some Irish in her background.
“It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go.”
Michael said his wife has talked about Ireland for as long as he can remember.
“She would sit down and read and if it had anything to do with Ireland she’d say, ‘I’m going there.’
“Well, she is going.”