Winter Break was much appreciated this year. The consensus before the start of the break was that it felt like it was a week of finals. Every AP class had a major test and projects were due. It felt like we were back at the end of trimester one instead of less than half way through trimester two.
While some students stayed in town, many traveled over the break for family or warmerweather. A popular destination over Christmas is generally Florida. Florida was better than the below freezing, snowstorm weather we had back at home, even if the temperatures didn’t reach their summer highs.
Although students sought to take their winter vacation elsewhere, there was still much to do around the Twin Cities. The raider pride kept strong over break, with both boys hockey and basketball playing a rivalry game against Saint Thomas Academy. After Christmas Silverbelle brought many together for the decades long tradition of girl ask boy dance. The dance just so happened to be at the Intercontinental Hotel where a few world junior hockey teams were staying during the IIHF world juniors tournament taking place at Grand Casino Arena (formerly the Xcel Energy Center) and the U of M’s 3m Arena at Mariucci in Minneapolis.
The tournament took place from December 26, starting with pool play, to the gold medal game on January 5th. The U.S. hosted nine international teams with players under twenty years old. To participate in the tournament, one did not need to buy tickets. The games were broadcasted on various platforms. Because of this Rice Park was transformed into the hub of international hockey for the few weeks. The park gained two skating rinks: one for bumper cars on ice, the other for skating; a giant puck; a ‘We Love Hockey’ sign; fire places with free s’mores; and a warming house to play games, cheer for teams, have a drink, and watch the games taking place just down the street. The park also hosted free New Years Eve fireworks for families to come and watch as the final game of the day was finishing at GCA. This is where you could find Kenzie Steineman ‘26 over break. She says that she “got to go to a lot of sporting events.” Such events include both raider and IIHF games. There was much more to experience around Minnesota throughout the break than just this. Because of the snow, many ventured out to skiing slopes and sledding hills. For Christmas spirit, multiple groups of students walked through Christmas light shows. New Year’s allowed for friends to hangout, lots trying the popular TikTok trend of eating twelve grapes under the table as soon as midnight hit and ending before 12:01 AM on January 1st. Some, such as DarbyPeterson ‘26 just took the few weeks to recharge. “I slept. It was good,” he says. Now coming off the break, it is a little shaky, but everything is in full swing. The theater production of The Outsiders has started practice, physics classes have tested their tower projects created over the month of December, tests and quizzes have already started to pop back up, and sports teams are coming back to regular schedules. Now well rested, we can’t wait until spring break, but until then we have a lot more to do.
