The hundreds of Tufts students who sign up to play in winter intramural leagues will have to find another way to stay warm during the dreary New England winter.
Director of Intramural Sports Cheryl Milligan announced in an e-mail Monday that the winter season, which for the past two years has taken place during the three weeks before and after winter break, has been canceled and replaced with "open gym."
Students will still have access to the same equipment during the open time slots, which have yet to be announced, but those who enjoy the challenge and fun of being on a competitive intramural team will have to wait until at least March to get back in the game.
"I'm not sure anyone will show up to open gym time," sophomore Michael Borys, who was planning on forming a team with his Theta Chi brothers during the winter, said. "I want my organized competition back. If people just show up and [mess] around with a soccer ball, it won't be the same."
Milligan cited a lack of space in the Gantcher Center and Carzo Cage during the winter months, when varsity athletics practice indoors, as a reason to end what was a two-year experiment with winter intramural leagues.
She also pointed to student schedule changes at the start of the second semester as an obstacle to an effective winter season.
For Milligan, who is both Tufts' softball coach and the lone administrator of the entire intramural program — in which 3,467 students participated last year — dealing with frequent cancellations became too much of a headache.
"Something has to give," Milligan said. In the past, intramural games would get bumped from playing spaces, making the process of scheduling intramurals difficult, she said.
"We tried to run a winter season, but we'd get bumped out all the time if, for example, the lacrosse team decided to practice indoors one night," she said. "We needed to make a change, and there will be people that are upset about it, but we're trying to do what's best."
Though there was interest in winter intramurals at the end of first semester last year, Milligan said, the interest died down significantly in the first weeks of second semester. Teams with losing records would often stop coming to games or would have to forfeit due to changes in their players' schedules.
"The downside is that during the long winter months, there won't be a season," she added. "But for 50 percent of the teams, there hasn't been one anyway."
Popular winter intramural sports like indoor soccer, dodgeball, basketball and floor hockey will move to the spring season, Milligan said, joining sports like softball and wiffleball.
The open gym nights in the next few months will require no sign-ups and no experience, she said. To prevent chaos, each sport will have designated time slots for friendly pick-up games.
"Ideally, we'd have separate space for intramurals and varsity athletics, but I guess this is the best thing that could be done," senior Tanzeel Ahmed, an intramural basketball player since his freshman year, said. "It'll be successful if the same groups of people go, as long as people aren't deterred."
But some intramural veterans question whether the same amount of people will participate without the same level of organized competition offered.
"I think you'll ultimately see less people showing up," junior Jake Schiller, who in the past played indoor soccer in the winter with friends from the club soccer team, said. "There will be more people with less skill and less desire to win that just want to goof around."
The season's cancelation is also frustrating to varsity athletes like freshman Solomon Krevans, who was looking forward to forming a floor hockey team with his friends from the sailing team, which competes in the fall and spring.
"I'm bummed out because the winter is my only chance to play intramurals," he said. "I might show up for open gym, but I can't be sure that there will be other teams there for us to play."
Milligan plans to hold open, town hall-style meetings in the coming weeks for students to share their thoughts about the new system. Schiller, who will be abroad next semester, was more than happy to offer the first few suggestions for future winter seasons.
"A better way to do this would have been to create a shorter winter season starting when we get back to school," he said, adding that eliminating the season was not the answer.
"I think there could have been ways to work around it," he said. "Maybe by offering fewer sports."
