Games for thickheaded people on thin ice

The issue of when to cross the frozen lake has always concerned me. I always want to experience the fun of slipping and falling on my bum. But inside I have this fear that I will be the kid who falls through the ice and dies from hypothermia, ruining the fun for everyone else.

So I was ecstatic when I got the e-mail informing me of the safety situation regarding the ice. I was dismayed that the ice’s status was “unsafe,” or “threat level red,” as I prefer to call it. But my dismay was soon quashed by the diagram of “Recommended Minimum Ice Thickness for New Clear Hard Ice.”

First of all, I didn’t know snowmobiling was an option on our ice. That’s pretty sweet, in my opinion. As soon as I measure our new clear ice to be five inches thick, I’m going down to Chauncey’s to rent myself a snowmobile. It will be fantastic.

But all those other sports aren’t really available here at Rose. I think I need to start up some IM leagues for them. The first sport I find wildly intriguing: Ice Fisher Stomping. I had never really known anything about it until I wikied it. Apparently one team ice fishes while the other team runs around them stomping holes in the ice until the ice fisher sinks or floats out of bounds.

Polar bear wrestling would also be a great sport to add to our IM catalog. This sport is only outlawed in Alaska, but has begun to get quite a following in other, less-frozen states. The bears just go at each other and trainers teach the bears special moves to do when they call out the attacks; for example, “Super Polar Spin!” Sure there’s no real athleticism involved, but there isn’t in golf either, is there?

But of all the winter activities listed, woolly mammoth wrangling was by far the most exciting. Apparently the sport hasn’t changed much since the Bronze Age; only the culture has. So most of those cowboys who’ve mastered bull riding and bucking broncos have moved on to mammoth wrangling. They take a spear and try to trip the beast to the ground and tie it up with its own woolly hair. I may be sick, but to me the coolest is when the mammoths win.