LOCALadk Magazine

Winter 2015 LOCALadk Magazine 31 LOCALadk weekend is a lively one in town, with the heart of the action centered at the Woods Inn and the nearby Screamen Eagle restaurant , just up the street. The Woods Inn where many of the teams stay, and the entire premises is dedicated to the festival during the weekend. For this year's event, there will be bands performing live on both Friday and Saturday nights, plus a DJ down on the ice, and a dueling piano performance Sat- urday afternoon, which was such a hit last year that having them back in 2016 was a must. In addition to entertainment, there's plenty to eat and drink, and plenty of places to relax and enjoy the festival. Food and beverages are available inside at the Inn, as well as outside along the shoreline and on the frozen lake itself. Parking passes are also available through the Woods Inn, along with presale dinner buffet tickets and VIP tickets for the weekend's festivities. "The ice bar on the lake is really popular. We have a concession area with food on the ice, and the players have changing rooms and in tents on the lake; there are fires going in barrels on the lake and such. They hang out and eat and have drinks on the ice and they come up to the inn. So it's quite the escapade," says Frey. "You would think you're visiting Wood- stock. Thousands of people come to town. It's absolutely amazing." And, of course, there's the main event: hockey. The tournament itself takes place across four rinks on Fourth Lake in front of the Woods Inn, in Inlet. 44 teams will play throughout the weekend, with six players on each team spreading out across the four rinks. Games will be going on all day on Friday and Saturday, with games under the lights on Friday and Saturday evenings as well. Despite the long list of activities and events going on throughout Ice Bowl weekend, growth hasn't changed the spirit of the event. In fact, as O'Brien says, it's quite the opposite. "A lot of the attraction to it is the uniqueness and the simplicity," he ex- plains. "It's an outdoor event, we're utilizing mother nature to provide the venue and the ice. And then the atmosphere—it's not confined to a big commercial building with a lot of advertising. We have a lot of enter- tainment now, bands, dueling pianos again, lots of stuff at the resort that we partner with. And every year we tend to get better at the logistics of the event, which then in return provides a much better experience for the spectators and participants. But the idea is to play hockey the way mother nature intended it to be." Another aspect of the pickup hockey tradition that's going strong since the event's inception: the strong sense of community that it fosters. "Af- ter our second official year, it became a labor of love," says O'Brien. "We do it because of the people meeting, attending, and praising the event-- that motivates us to keep it going to this point." The Adirondack Ice Bowl's 2016 sponsors include Saranac/FX Matt Brew- ery, Hamilton Orthopedics, Adirondack Bank, and CVS, and countless volunteers, helpers, and sponsors contribute their time and resources to help make it a success each year, including the Miller family, owners of the Screamen Eagle. "It makes much more sense to team up, as a small community," explains Frey. "It brings the whole community together in the wintertime to work on this." Adirondack Ice Bowl 2016 will take place Friday and Saturday, January 29 and 30, with Sunday scheduled as a backup day in case of inclement weather. For more information, visit adirondackicebowl.com. If the ice is calling your name, it's never too early to start thinking about next year's tournament. These days, teams start planning well in ad- vance, because the Ice Bowl has become a solid winter tradition, and the same teams have been participating for years. "We're sold out as soon as we open. Registration is in March, and we were closed within an hour," said O'Brien. "There are a lot of returning teams, and as soon as registra- tion opens, they don't miss their opportunity. They know how fast it fills up. They come from all over the world; the Netherlands, Mexico, all over the United States." Whether you're a local or a visitor, a hockey lover or just looking for a midwinter getaway in the Adirondacks, the Ice Bowl can provide you with a full weekend of fun and games. For more information visit, www.adirondackicebowl.com

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