Skating and dodgeball help students’ finals stress

With the last week of classes and finals looming over students, Campus Recreation and Sport Facilities along with Residence Life put on two big events last Friday to help relieve some stress.

The events were “Falcons on Ice” in Hunt Arena and a dodgeball tournament in the Knowles Center which were both Mardi Gras themed. Free skates and free climbing were offered to students that presented their student ID while Mardi Gras attire was handed out to all participants and the winning dodgeball team won the famous campus intramural t-shirts.

There were 180 skate rentals handed out with close to 205-220 people in attendance at the rink, according to Assistant Director of Recreation Tiffany Gaulke.

“I saw a sign for it in the UC (University Center) and I have always wanted to try skat- ing so I thought it would be a fun event to go to,” said UW-River Falls freshman Krystina Hlavacek.

Residence Life came up with the Mardi Gras theme as they try to find a fun theme ever year for their events. Intramural Supervisor Elizabeth Edd said she felt like students had a lot of fun with the theme.

It is no surprise the Falcons on Ice event was a success as open skating at UWRF has been a mainstay on campus for years thanks to cheap prices provided to students that are hard to beat anywhere else.

UWRF students can skate for free during open skate hours and rent either hockey or figure skates for $2.00. To find out when open skate is offered students can check on the UWRF master calendar found on uwrf.edu.

Fourteen teams participated in the dodgeball tournament and Edd said after intramurals took a year off from dodgeball last year that people were excited it was back this year.

“I think people really missed not having dodgeball last year,” Edd said.

Edd said it is always hard to tell how many people will show up when an event is held on a Friday night but was happy to see how many people did show up.

“We had a good turnout for a Friday night event,” Edd said. “We were happy with how many people there were. All the teams were excited and even showed up early to the tournament.”

While many students can be found studying and finishing up projects this time of the semester it is still important to have events like this on campus to give students something to get their minds of schoolwork, even if it is just for a little bit.

Campus recreation holds events like this all year long in order to give students a fun option to stay busy while also enjoying time with friends and relieving some stress. Senior Nathan Reckard who has competed in intra- murals all four years at UWRF talked about that earlier this semester.

“Intramurals helps me relax, lower stress and keeps my competitive nature going,” Reckard said.

With one week of finals left followed by a much needed J-term break for students, Edd said she hopes students will remember about intramurals next semester, “I think every student should join intramurals.”