{"id":52205,"date":"2012-02-02T10:47:58","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T15:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=52205"},"modified":"2018-10-01T13:46:44","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T17:46:44","slug":"winter-throwdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2012\/02\/02\/winter-throwdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Inaugural Winter Throwdown leaves competitors curled, stumped, but happy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Human Curling during the 2012 Winter Throwdown. Photograph by Simone Schriger ’14.<\/p><\/div>\n

Marching toward a freshly painted Lake Andrews curling court in a parade of neon-, flower- and cheetah-patterned Spandex, competitors in the first annual Intercollegiate Winter Throwdown came brandishing team mascots, notably the superb white-bearded wizard gnome of the University of Maine at Farmington.<\/p>\n

The teams were greeted at the Puddle by the games\u2019 three judges, who issued succinct guidelines for the third event, Human Curling. Blocking and inter-team strategizing allowed; butt-scooching forbidden! As judges, contestants and spectators watched, the teams launched their living, breathing projectiles on green and purple discs toward a spray-painted black target.<\/p>\n

Teams from Williams, Wesleyan, Tufts, UMF and Bates faced off in the initial heats. Following several overthrows, a more refined level of technique emerged that led Williams and the two Bates teams to an ultimate curling battle. In the end, team Lamesauce — Sam Prawer \u201913 and first-years Sean Murphy, Erick MacLean and Nate Tower — narrowly beat Williams for the gold.<\/p>\n

Produced by the Bates Outing Club, the Jan. 27-29 Throwdown was inspired by a now-defunct winter competition between Bates and close rivals Colby and Bowdoin. The resurrection was the brainchild of Matt Baker-White \u201913, who thought hosting a winter event \u201cwould be a fun undertaking for the Outing Club, and a great way to get to know other outing clubs and bond with them over a shared passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to Human Curling, the Throwdown featured a cross-campus scavenger hunt whose to-dos included \u201cplanking\u201d around campus, a human pyramid atop Mount David and pictures with the Outing Club\u2019s current and previous presidents, Colin Barry \u201912 and Kellen MacFadyen \u201912, respectively.<\/p>\n

The action-packed Throwdown schedule also included a sledding relay race and a Whisperlite campstove cooking contest at the BOC lean-to, in Greene, for Sunday breakfast. Both contests yielded impressive results. For instance, one team in the relay race made good use of a surfboard against the more typical toboggans and discs. And Tufts\u2019 goat-cheese crepes took the breakfast crown, but Williams\u2019 team also deserves an honorable mention for their maple beer-soaked crisp bacon.<\/p>\n

Throwdown organizers made sure to introduce the visitors to the classic BOC game of Stump, featuring it as a major event. The game, played in the BOC E-Room, in the basement of Hathorn Hall, is played with participants circled around and two nails set in a large tree stump. The object is to toss a hammer up so that it spins, catch it again and swiftly hammer the competition’s nails fully into the stump. The last player with a protruding nail wins.<\/p>\n

Throwdown judge Saebyul Choe \u201914, a BOC Stump standout, was more than happy to advise Bates\u2019 guests on technique. \u201cTossing the hammer clockwise gives a lot more leverage when coming down,\u201d she explained to a struggling UMF competitor.<\/p>\n

Despite the excitements of Stump and the weekend’s other games, competitors agreed that Human Curling was the most fun. Co-organizer and judge Torri Zapack \u201913, however, wasn\u2019t entirely convinced. \u201cCrepes! On a Whisperlite! And they had goat cheese,\u201d she exclaimed.<\/p>\n

Williams received the first-ever Throwdown Winner\u2019s Cup during the closing awards ceremony. Bates Tunesquad, Tufts, Lamesauce and the teams from Wesleyan and UMF ranked second through fifth, respectively. The BOC anticipates a long life for the games: the Cup, handcrafted from E-Room cross-country skis, has space for the names of game champions through 2024!<\/p>\n

Baker-White and Zapack were extremely pleased with the inaugural event. He and Zapack learned a lot from \u201cthe real-life event planning experience,\u201d Baker-White said, noting that even after months of preparations, \u201cit still felt like we were flying by the seat of our pants for much of the weekend!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the best things about the BOC is its ability to come up with anything — like conceive of an event — and go for it. It\u2019s a huge advantage of being completely student-run.\u201d<\/p>\n

— By Elana Leopold ’12<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a parade of patterned Spandex, competitors in the first Intercollegiate Winter Throwdown came brandishing team mascots, notably the University of Maine at Farmington’s superb white-bearded gnome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":52212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[130,11012],"tags":[1467,11033],"class_list":["post-52205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaboration","category-student-life","tag-bates-outing-club","tag-student-contributors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52205"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118975,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52205\/revisions\/118975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}