New ice rink on campus would be bold venture

December 5, 2005 —

With recent temperatures pushing absolute zero and boredom reaching a semester highpoint, it is blatantly obvious that the University is in desperate need of an ice rink in the middle of campus.

While the idea seems strange, impractical, improbable and slippery, it would be a wonderful pastime for the nearly 10 students on campus who enjoy ice skating at public universities. Creating an ice rink would also bode well for hockey fans frustrated with attending a university without a team and students who like to be hit with random flying pucks while on their way to class. And while this vision is certainly "out there," it is not so hard to believe when analyzing recent meteorological patterns.

Take for example last year, when a strange winter storm managed to flood only the campus courtyard. Thankfully, the drainage system is far different from the administration in that the drains actually do their job and the water disappeared almost as quickly as it randomly appeared in the first place.

But the strange weather was just beginning. Weeks later, the water again returned, actually freezing before it could drain. This quickly proved false a longtime campus belief that the only thing rigid and icy on campus are those who determine tuition increases.

Unfortunately, a rash of thefts quickly eliminated the ice, as someone stole it in the middle of the night and replaced it with a rectangular pit of mud. This pit was a campus favorite, as students and white shoes everywhere were pleased with the chunks of brown goo showing up all over the place.

Clearly, these patterns indicate that it is more than possible to create an ice rink, swimming pool and mud wrestling arena on one chunk of land in less than a week. But since Michigan has Hockeytown and it is the middle of December, we suggest that the University funds an ice skating rink.

The first thing (obviously) the University would have to do is set up large gates around the entire courtyard. The gates would be 25-feet high and surging with electrical charge in order to ward off the mobs of people that are almost surely to form if the rink is not opened before the ice can be accurately gauged as safe. Furthermore, large air conditioners would need to be brought in by helicopter to keep the rink cold, since Michigan weather is as reliable as CardMail.

Once these preliminary issues are in order, the rink can be opened and immediately declared a failure in every way, shape, and form.

So maybe after analyzing the idea, it fails to live up to its hype. It would be horrendously irresponsible for the University to spend the student's money on an ice rink that melts in three days and that no one uses. Instead, the University can spend the student's money on tons of other things that no one uses.

In the end, it's always nice to have visions and dreams. Perhaps we were going a bit overboard with the idea of putting a skating rink in the middle of campus. Clearly, the idea would never work and cause so much pain that we would never try it again. But we don't have to worry about that, do we?

It's not like it has been tried before.