Yellowknife (Sep 24/04) - The Department of Transportation soared to victory again, outscoring its closest competitors by 100 points in the second annual Corporate Challenge.

With as many as three teams in one event, the department cleaned up, taking 150 participation points and 390 competition placement points to secure the top rating.

The key, according to Team Captain Lynell Broadbent, was getting as many department employees involved as possible.

With this the team's second straight victory, the system is definitely working.

"You want to participate if you like working in the department and I really like working there," said team member Therese Stevens. "We're a team at work and we're a team out of work."

Odessa Hewlko, event organizer with the city, already has ideas on how to improve the challenge for next year.

"The Corporate Challenge idea is coming from Edmonton so we're going to change things to fit Yellowknife," said Hewlko.

Another goal is to get smaller companies involved.

"We get a lot of participation from the bigger companies," said Hewlko.

In fact, the two smallest company population categories didn't have any teams registered.

Hewlko said next year they plan to begin promoting the event sooner and as the event continues to grow, different ideas will be incorporated.

Currently, teams all compete against each other, regardless of company size.

That's something Hewlko wants to change.

"Once it gets bigger, we'll split it up into divisions so a company will only compete against companies of the same size," she said.

What won't change is the Spirit Award, given to the team that puts in the best effort with the best attitude, regardless of winning or losing. This year, Diavik won the Spirit Award. Hewlko said it was because they participated in virtually every event, despite the difficulty of co-ordinating employee schedules.

See the scoreboard in today's Sport's Section for the final standings.