New season, new changes
Column by Joanie Barry
Another intramural season is underway at the Bell Center. Basketball just wrapped up its first week of play.
There is already some intense competition among teams, which is not surprising.
Basketball season is consistently the most competitive intramural sport at Drake.
Even though there are no surprises on the basketball court so far this season, there are some surprises elsewhere in intramurals.
There are pretty significant changes for indoor soccer and floor hockey.
For those people who don’t know, floor hockey and indoor soccer seasons overlap.
In the past couple seasons, floor hockey has been played at the fieldhouse and soccer in the Bell Center. But, thanks to the new fieldhouse turf, the events will switch.
The most significant aspect of this change comes as a result of scheduling. All floor hockey athletes know that, in the past, games can last until after midnight.
A typical late-night hockey game is accompanied by complaints like, “I have an eight o’clock lab tomorrow!” or “I missed Thirsty Thursday because of this!” Well, fear no more, Dubliners, floor hockey will now abide by the Bell Center hours.
Unfortunately for indoor soccer athletes, the schedule is still TBA.
I cannot promise that indoor soccer will take over hockey’s old time slot.
Soccer athletes, keep scheduling in mind before going to the pre-season captain’s meeting.
A new sport has been added to the intramurals lineup.
Drake intramurals hosted an ultimate Frisbee tournament this past weekend. Currently, ultimate Frisbee is only an intramural tournament.
However, if enough people participate in tournaments and request ultimate Frisbee, there is a chance that it could become a full-season sport.
The nice thing about ultimate Frisbee is the fact that it could be played in either semester, indoors or outdoors. Now that the fieldhouse has been remodeled, depending on scheduling of other Drake athletics, ultimate Frisbee can have space to play.
Lastly, there are some new people sporting intramural polos.
The intramural staff has added three new junior supervisors to our team. Haley Hicks, Layton Mikkalson and Trevor Carlson joined the intramurals family this semester.
The three junior supervisors were outstanding officials who proved to be leaders.
The staff is excited to call these three young officials up to the big leagues.
If you have any questions about these new changes or anything related to intramurals, email Bill Moorman at bill.moorman@drake.edu.
As always, check back here for updates on intramurals as well as the Drake Intramurals’ Facebook page.
Until next time, stay safe and play ball (or Frisbee).
Barry is a senior radio-television and secondary education double major and can be reached at joan.barry@drake.edu