Broomball is back at Michigan Tech. Players hit the ice once again following a weather induced hiatus that left fans eagerly waiting for the return of their favorite winter pastime. After a couple days of colder weather and plenty of work put in by the rink staff, broomball players can finally dust off their brooms and gear up for some action-packed games.
Trying to maintain the rinks through the warm weather was extremely difficult for the rink staff. Andrew Maiers, the Vice Chair of the broomball committee, stated, “The rinks are able to handle a day or two when it reaches 40°. The problem was we had multiple days straight where the high was over 40° and the low was over 32°. This meant we couldn’t repair any of the damage done throughout the day. Our rink staff had to work from scratch to get the ice back to playable, which is why it took around 5 days of freezing weather to get back to playing games.”
Looking ahead, the broomball committee plans to finish the remaining scheduled games of the season and see about the possibility of making up lost games after spring break. “Assuming we have cold weather after spring break, we will pick up where we left off with our original cancellations,” Maiers stated. While we may still be able to make up for some of our lost games, there will likely be a big mix up in broomball tradition this year: “We most likely won’t have playoffs,” Maiers admitted, adding, “There are 263 teams that paid to play this year and the playoffs would only benefit 64 of them. This has been a wild winter so maybe [if] the freezing weather sticks through March and we can hold playoffs once we make up all the games we missed.”
As broomball games resume, players and fans alike are itching to get back into the action. While our chances of seeing playoffs this year are slim, with the help of some below freezing weather we can still reclaim much of our broomball season.
