Once upon a time in a winter wonderland, dragons, knights, and legendary sights come to life on Michigan Technological University’s campus. Tonight the all-nighter brings the university’s students out of their dorms for grand adventures, broomball battles, and sculpting the carnival’s incredibly creative snow sculptures.
I think it’s a magical feeling, like just the anticipation, the excitement, I feel like campus comes together to pull off the all-nighter and like there’s just a different feeling on campus. I feel like as you walk around, it’s so much more lively and people are excited. They’re out in the snow, they’re building the statues. They’re showing like, I’m going to show up for this and I’m going to put my time and effort into it, which I think is so cool. – Skyler Spitzley, President, Blue Key Honor Society
One of the campus’ most attended traditions pits two teams of warriors on a sheet of ice. Broomball.
Anybody, I mean, you guess anybody could do it. You take a wooden stick broom, you cut it into a shape and then you duct tape it and that’s your stick. And then you go out on the ice and your boots and snow pants then go around and try to hit a foam ball that’s like frozen. So you’re trying to get a goal on the ice. And I think for Michigan Tech like that’s just an innate part of our history. And part of the tech experience is broomball. I played my first two years and it was fun, but I think it gets people so excited to be outside and hockey is such a big thing up here that I think it allows everybody to partake in something like that. – Skyler Spitzley, President, Blue Key Honor Society
Blue Key Honor Society invites the community to join the fun too. Students and alumni can partake in mocktails at the Memorial Union building, or sing karaoke. And later in the night enjoy dancing and a laser light show.
Then the Indian Students Association has a huge rave party with all of the different types of Indian music right outside of Dow and so many people go there. And it’s so cool to see everybody get excited about that. And then we have the big AES snow statue, which is like the boombox snow statue. And that’s always had a lot of people at it. And then this year, well, we also have the All-Star Boom Ball games, which brings so many people. And like last year we weren’t able to have it on the outdoor broom ball rinks. So we had everybody go up to the SEC and it was still like everybody still charged up the hill and showed up into support. And this year knowing that we’ll probably still have it at the broom ball courts. And then right after that have a laser light show. I think a lot of people are gonna like that too cause it’s right afterward. – Skyler Spitzley, President, Blue Key Honor Society
Winter carnival all-nighter statue building begins at 4 pm. And activities in the Memorial Union building will start at 7 pm. Broomball games will have the ball drop at 9 pm for the all-star games. The laser light show will begin at 11:15 pm. Those interested in learning more about all-nighter activities can find more details here.
