A Warm Winter Carnival Moves Broomball Off the Pond but Still Sets a Polar Plunge Record

The 2025 Winter Carnival ended Saturday after a week that organizers described as “technically winter.” The campus weather station logged a high of 41°F on Tuesday. The Millrace pond, which needs at least eight inches of ice for broomball, measured just under six inches on Monday morning.

Broomball. Facilities closed the pond for play on Monday and Tuesday. The broomball league moved 24 games to the outdoor rink at the Forge Recreation Center, where the ice is artificial and, as one player put it, “suspiciously flat.” A cold front brought the pond back to playable ice by Thursday. The final was played there on Saturday afternoon in front of about 500 people. The Construction Student Association’s team, the Load-Bearing Walls, beat the Woodworking Club 3–1. The Woodworking Club has made the final two years running and is said to be working on its brooms.

Ice sculpture. Eighteen teams carved outside Founders Union, working mostly at night when it was coldest. Cooperative Hall won with a five-foot replica of the 1912 Founders Hall cornerstone. By Sunday it had become a four-foot replica.

Polar plunge. On Friday, 161 people jumped through a hole cut in the pond ice with Porter Falls Fire Department divers standing by. They raised $11,640 for the Student Emergency Fund, a carnival record and about $2,100 more than the previous best, set in 2023.

“We were honestly worried the hole would just be the whole pond. It wasn’t. The ice was fine on Friday, the water was cold, and a hundred and sixty-one people decided that was a reasonable way to spend a lunch break.”

— Amara Lindgren, a junior in dietetics and plunge co-organizer

The Dean of Students Office estimated that about 3,300 students went to at least one carnival event. The snowshoe race on the University Farm trails was cancelled for lack of snow and replaced with a “mud shoe” walk, which drew 14 people and has not been scheduled again.

The Student Emergency Fund covers one-time costs, such as a car repair or a missed paycheck, that could otherwise force a student to leave school. The full week’s traditions are on the Winter Carnival page.

Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu