Cheerful voices can be heard as the two teams grab the tools needed to duke it out on the ice. They assume their positions and with a clickity-clack of wood-on- wood, the game has just begun. What follows is good natured yelling, calling, hyping and more. They don’t wear skates, but all the players still slide on the ice as each player aims for the op- posing team’s goal, with the true challenge being to out maneuver their opponents.

At NMU, there are a plethora of different club sports to par- ticipate in. From bowling to soc- cer, it’s bustling with opportunity if one is looking for a sport to play recreationally. One that has to be played in more frigid tem- peratures is one of NMU’s more popular ones, which makes per- fect sense with the U.P. climate. Broomball, played predominately between two teams of six, and is like hockey. However, players use brooms and a ball, instead of hockey sticks and a puck.

Intramural Sports Manager Christopher Smith said that, as the manager, he organizes the leagues and trains the referees. He mentioned that Tricia Bush, associate athletic director for Campus Recreation, stated that broomball has been a sport at NMU for over 20 years. Being another form of having fun on the ice, it makes sense that it would be pretty popular.

“It is definitely a popular sport,” Smith said. “Typically, we have 16-22 teams sign up each year.”

Smith said the team had been playing on a “new” location since the beginning of February.

“It’s essentially some snow that is packed down near Spalding, and is surrounded by snow,” he continued. “The surface has been great so far, except for when it is very warm, like the 45- 50 degree weather we had this past weekend.”