Throwback Thursday

Winter on the UMaine campus holds a special memory for all students for uniquely different reasons. Maybe it was the tears freezing in your eyes as you walked across the mall towards the Union during a snow storm. Perhaps it was attempting to dig your car out from the Hilltop Lot after a big storm using only a serving tray from the dinning commons. Of course there was also those drunk dares that usually involved eating yellow snow or jumping off the roof of an unnamed apartment complex into a pile of snow. However for many of us who went to Orono in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, this time of winter used to mean one thing; UMaine’s Winter Carnival.
It started as an unofficial and slightly disorganized event put on by the Greek Community along College Avenue during the second week in February. Usually the activities included snow sculptures, snowball fights, frozen beer pong, and the list goes on and on. At its peak hundreds of students would make their way down to the fraternities to take part in the annual event where people drank their winter blues away and enjoyed so good old fashion fun outdoors.
The sled races down the hill behind Sigma Nu were legendary and also life threatening as the location offered almost no run-out room before College Avenue. It wasn’t a traditional sled race, of course not, it was “anything goes” and people would show up with homemade sleds of all sorts. Several versions of the couch sled or chair sled could be counted on to make an appearance each year, usually with one flipping over maiming someone.
In more recent years, in the pre-Blue Sky Plan ear, University officials wanted to take this mostly Greek event and make it “family friendly” with activities spread out across campus. Shockingly enough, as must college students don’t have children and families, the event tanked and hasn’t made an appearance since 2011.
Winter is hard enough in Orono, I hope for everyone’s sake that the Greek Organizations get behind a rebranded Winter Carnival for 2015 and bring it back to the glory days I remember.    

Photo Credit: Courtesy of  The Maine Campus

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

About "Fill The Steins": A multimedia platform devoted to providing an informative, entertaining forum that celebrates "the college of our hearts always" and its graduates' contributions to academics, athletics, and popular culture, as created by alumni and students, for alumni and students. FTS is not affiliated with the University of Maine or UMaine System and does not represent the views or opinions of the university in any way, shape, or form.
Copyright © Fill The Steins

This blog has been archived

This blog has been archived and is no longer being updated.