Winter competition by teams playing "hungry hippos" on city ice rink

This past Sunday while waiting for the free downtown area shuttle bus (D.A.Sh) at city center of Grand Rapids, the sounds of recorded music on loudspeakers and a few shrieks and other excited sounds from the outdoor ice rink caught my attention. So I walked across the grass embankment for a closer look (right-click the image to view the video in full-size, directly on Youtube).

The table-top game, "Hungry Hippos," has been adapted for the "live action" scale of competition, here at the public ice rink in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. Each team has a designated color and is dressed in matching T-shirts, pulled over top of their winter coats. At the starting signal each team launches one player on an inner-tube, tethered to a rope. This player uses an upside-down laundry basket to trap as many plastic balls as possible from the middle of the ice. The team then reels in the player when the basket is full and relaunches the person to gather more. The object is to take as many of the balls as possible for one's team before the supply of colored plastic balls is used up.

For a spectator coming from a warm country, this vigorous embrace of the cold and disregard for the gusts of snow might look outlandish. For a spectator of this region, but coming from 100 or 150 years earlier, the concept of leisure time might seem odd, because in those earlier lives so much of living required time and effort: pump the water, empty the chamber pot, secure something to prepare for cooking on stove, fireplace, or oven. Much of what passed for recreation or diversions in those conditions somehow had to fit into work routines or in the brief interval between one task and the next. So to see so many people gathered in matching outfits with music emanating from boxes atop poles for a couple of hours really would be a rare use of daylight hours on a Sunday late afternoon and evening. But for the people there on this day, completely accustomed to snowy weather and well-insulated for it, doing something outdoors that involves major muscle groups, social interaction, and active involvement (nothing virtual or digital or asynchronous about it) is a precious thing to prize and fully enjoy. Even in the short span of 24 seconds in this video clip, the pleasant engagement of the people pulling their teammate on the rope while standing on the ice can be sensed.