In Minnesota They Play Broomball

Broomball, dear children, is a wonderful sport involving a broom and a ball. It is played on a sheet of ice such as a hockey rink or a frozen pond. The point of the game is to hit the ball with the broom and make it go into the goal. Who ever does this the most wins. (Note - this game is nearly always played in teams, so the team with the most goals wins.) Regular brooms are preferred for this sport, though people have considered using push brooms and there are some that would argue the advantage to being able to shove the ball further ahead while running down the ice. They are also useful for goalies and defensemen trying to clear the ball out of the area in front of the net. However, push brooms are rather inefficient in closed quarters and crowded spaces, thus the regular broom prevails in most broomball games. They have made special shoes for broomball that have special suction cups on the bottom of them, making it easier to run and maintain balance on the ice, which become slipperier as the game goes on. Most people prefer not to wear these shoes or spend the money on them, and spend most of their time running and sliding and covering great distances quickly. The art of sliding, falling, and using the boards or other people to stop one's self is a skill highly valued in the game of broomball. Though broomball is not yet an accepted Olympic sport, many Minnesotans hope fervently that it will become one in the coming years. If it does, you can be assured that every member of the United States Olympic Broomball team will hail from a small town in Minnesota.

In Minnesota They Have Ice Storms

Ice storms, my dear children, are atmospheric occurrences when ice sheets of varying sizes drop out of the sky and wreak havoc on the poor populations below. Minnesotans are dependant on ice storms to furnish the surfaces on which they play their favorite sports: Broomball and Ice Hockey. (No one in Minnesota figure skates; it’s not a real sport) Indeed, these fine creatures believe they have Mother Nature so well trained that she will never disobey, and will continually dump arena-sized sheets of ice into the same outdoor locations year after year. Why bother making your own ice, really, when the sky can just drop six months' supply into your outdoor arena? The problem arises when the ice doesn't fall where it is supposed to. As you can imagine, sheets of ice six inches thick and the size of an Olympic ice rink can cause quite a few problems and snarl traffic quite admirably. This, my friends, is why, when a Minnesotan complains about ice storms, you'd better listen closely and take them seriously!