Spike ball

Title: Spike ball

General Information About Item:

Informant Data:

Emily McLaughlin was born in Eden Prairie, Minnesota on March 31, 1999, and plays forward for Dartmouth Women’s Ice Hockey. Emily is a junior at Dartmouth College and it’s her fourth year playing for the team.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: Playing spike ball before off ice warm-ups on game day has been a long-time ritual of Dartmouth Women’s Ice Hockey. The material item, the spike ball net, and the ball has been passed down in the team, but the participants before the game consists of the same group of four players: one per class.
Social Context: This item is performed outside of the locker room, prior to off-ice warm-ups.

Item:

The same spike ball game, as shown below, is passed from the previous graduating class to the current team members. The following video below shows some of the Dartmouth Women’s Ice Hockey players playing the game before warm-ups.

spike ball Currie Putrah, CC Bowlby, Georgia Kraus, Hannah Humphreys

Transcript:

“Before every off ice warm-up, I play spike ball. It’s my favorite pre-game tradition and makes me feel included in the team. I enjoy laughing and breaking a sweat with my buddies before the game starts. Playing spike ball helps to get my heart rate up and get some stress out if I am nervous about the game.”

Informant’s Comments:

This ritual allows the team to have some fun before the game, where everyone must be dialed in and focus for all three periods. The game serves as a way to ease the pressure of game day and to have an opportunity to have fun and foster team chemistry.

Collector’s Comments:

This tradition is very important to the team, because it not only helps the members of the spike ball crew to warm-up their muscles and loosen up, it also allows team chemistry to be cultured. By having fun with teammates before the game, players can get even more pumped for the game and remember that it is just another one of hundreds of hockey games that they’ve played before.

Collector’s name: Jennifer Costa

Tags/Keywords:

Dartmouth Folklore Archive