Snow Day All So Familiar For Nielsen

Mary Nielsen took some time to recap a rare snow day at Duke.

As one of the only permanent residents from that gentle Great White North, it was of calming familiarization to peek out of my dorm window and see a flurry of white, delicate flakes falling outside. The first snow fall of the semester, the first time I’d ever seen a winter wonderland in North Carolina, it was blissfully relaxing to experience something I never thought I’d miss as much as I did. From the periwinkle skies to the bright-white banks, last Sunday lay as one of the most breathtaking afternoons I’ve encountered here at Duke and I had to seize such an opportunity.

Abby [Hassinger], Micaela [Paterson] and I took advantage of such glorious weather, sledding around east campus and deciding to roll into the untouched charters of our field hockey pitch. Because the snow was somewhat icy on the surface, we were able to play what we soon called “snow hockey” and passed the ball around, listening to Michael Jackson and dancing like idiots. Then we got an awesome idea to make the “DUFH” symbol in the snow; after a few minutes of hard manual labour, we went up to the top of the Jack [Katz Stadium] stands to review our masterpiece. To top off the afternoon in the snow, we decided to make a snow Dufher - set with a stick and Duke Field hockey pinnie.

Unfortunately the snow melted the next day, and as we returned to the field there were only exhausted remnants of our snow-woman-field-hockey-superstar. This semester will be an exciting one, as we are all very excited to get back into the swing of hockey, but as for now...the snow was a wonderful reminder of home.

- Mary