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Winter Carnival has officially started and today begins the display of the magic created when Huskies are combined with snow.
It’s snow statues and ski jumping and cartwheels in the snow. It’s a mosh pit (in 5 degrees).
On the side walks, pasties and pickled eggs are for sale, there’s all you can eat pancakes inside, and an undeniable blanket of happiness comforting the crowd.
It’s Winter Carnival and it’s here.
Brice Richard of the MTU Four Wheeler club explains how their statue added a twist to the interpretation of this year’s theme.
Richard said, “This year the theme is Myths and Legends of the Past- In Our Frigid Forecast. We were kind of just joking around and were saying ‘well, parking is a myth on campus’. There’s not enough parking, that’s a myth. We submitted it and, to our surprise, it was approved. Three weeks later this is where we’re at.”
The display is two, very detailed, hand carved jeeps that reportedly initially offended the parking department on campus.
Teammate Rachael Veeran said, “Parking services didn’t really like the whole idea, thinking it was derogatory towards the department and then after talking to Kirsti Isaacson, we’re ok with it now.”
As a symbol of their sense of humor, campus police issued one the jeeps a fictitious parking ticket…as a myth.
The team placed it under the windshield wiper where it remains on display.
As the all-stars played broom ball, skiers and snow boarders formed a single file line climbing to the top of a 20 foot mound of snow that they each took turns riding down before choosing which jump to perform their stunt from.
When the crowd migrated from the parking lot ice rinks, two DJs began taking turns playing music from a large fully functional snow statue DJ booth, encasing 26 speakers, and interactive stage lights built by Sound Engineering students.
Zareck Pirkola commends his teammates for all their hard work on the build.
Pirkola said, “Overall, it’s a big team effort. It takes a lot of effort to get this statue constructed. There’s been times where we’ve been out until 12:30 or 1:30 in the morning. It’s a lot of fun but it really takes a lot of effort out of all of us.”
Other statues are wrapping up this morning as judging and public display begins at 8:00.
