March 3, 2020 – RubicOnline

To close the season, each athlete gathers in the dining hall with their team to feast, reminisce, and enjoy the team bond for one last moment. Each team has a similar outline for their banquet. The team gathers with their parents and coaches to eat and talk about the past season. Most teams vote on team awards, for example, Rookie of the Year and Most Improved. But each team has its own spin on the event. 

Sophomore Lucy Benson’s banquet experience was a little different than others’ because most of the Girl’s Hockey team is from Visitation, and she hadn’t seen most of them since their last game. Like a lot of captains, her captains created fun awards to give to each girl on the team. Benson said, “One of them was most likely to swallow your mouth guard because somebody had swallowed their mouthguard.”

The captains of the alpine ski team worked together to award each skier an Avatar character, for example, one skier received The Painted Lady. The team had a few other ways that they made their banquet more interesting. Junior Isabelle Wolpert laughed and said, “The seniors go up and the coaches basically asked them questions about their future.”

Teasing between teams was also discussed at the alpine banquet. A pile of lost clothes and gear had been assumed to belong to the ski team throughout their season. They hosted a fashion show of these lost items to encourage people to take home their belongings but found that most of the items didn’t even belong to the team.

Each banquet is a little different, but each one has the same purpose: one last team moment of the season to wrap up the hours training, competing, and bonding that the team endured during their long winter season.