Well, I never did manage to contact Minh Thai and Jeff Varasano.
I was the sole prize-winning Canadian in the US contests (the 2nd one).
Unfortunately, that was not really allowed by the rules so the feat
was never recorded in the Ideal newsletters, though I still have my
medal from Sept. 28, 1981 from Buffalo New York.
My time was around 38 seconds... although I did improve after that a bit.
There are other people from the cube contests that are on the internet:
Myself, Chris Pelley, Robert Jen....
I was never sure if Mike Reid of Cube-Lovers was the same Mike Reid in the
cube contests...
I was in the Canadian contests too, although no prizes there. I did get
a yellow certificate for making to the final round (under a minute).
I went to London and Toronto Ontario.
Erno Rubik was at the Canadian Championships at the Ontario Science Centre.
Ron Lancaster was also a judge, and Stewart Sims from Ideal Toy was there.