Laurier students ‘crash ice’

Last Thursday at the John Labatt Centre in London, Ont. Laurier students Megan Coady and Mark Harris laced up their skates, put on their shoulder pads and helmets, but quite purposely forgot their sticks. Instead of suiting up to play hockey, the two were getting ready to take part in a qualifier for Red Bull Crashed Ice, the death-defying race through a downhill ice course, crowded with skaters.

In order to want to do that you’d have to be crazy, right?

“I just like a lot of stuff that gives a good adrenaline rush,” said Coady, a first-year political science major at Laurier. “My friend posted a video of Crashed Ice on my facebook wall and said something like ‘we have to try this.’ I had gone on the website and I found the application forms and kind of applied as a joke.”

Harris, a second-year geography student and defensive back on Laurier’s football team expressed similar sentiments when asked how he decided to try his hand at Red Bull Crashed Ice.

“It was just for jokes really,” he said. “Growing up I always played hockey, I play football at Laurier, so I just thought I’d try this.”

Thursday’s qualifier, however, paled in comparison to the massive downhill courses that have come to be associated with the event. In order to qualify for the World Championship, participants had to skate an obstacle course (on a flat ice surface) and attempt to post the best time.

Unfortunately for the two-person Laurier contingent, both Coady and Harris were disqualified for hitting an obstacle in their runs.

“I wanted to go down one of those crazy courses,” laughed Harris. “That would’ve been way cooler and I think I’d probably be better at that anyway.”

This year’s World Championship will be taking place in Quebec City on March 19.

Red Bull Crashed Ice qualifiers