Sportshow A Can't Miss Event For Outdoors Enthusiasts

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- With this long winter, a lot of us have cabin fever and are ready to be outdoors. What better way to prepare for the spring and summer than to visit the Northwest Sportshow?

An estimated 40,000 visitors will head to the Minneapolis Convention Center over the next few days, where there's everything from fishing to hunting gear and 400 vendors.

But the entertainment is something you can't miss.

Eighty-one years of hunting and fishing, and the Northwest Sportshow is experiencing a first -- a visit from the Lumberjack Feud.

In a sport where speed and technique make all the difference, professional lumberjacks Ray Geist and Zach Brown can scale a 40-foot log in seconds, or log roll in a pool of freezing water with no problem.

"It's just a completely different sport than baseball or football. I'm swinging sharp objects, I'm working with chainsaws," Geist said. "It's definitely something we've all been working on quite a few years now."

They call it the speed climb, but there was nothing speedy about this trek to the top for WCCO's Rachel Slavik.

Hoping to regain some dignity, she headed to the log rolling pool. Though she received expert tips from Brown, that little sidebar also ended in defeat.

The Sportshow runs Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The lumberjack feud has four shows on Saturday and two on Sunday.