Students, faculty and staff are invited to take part in the University’s first iceless ice rink in the Donald Bollinger Memorial Student Union on March 3 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event, sponsored by the Student Programming Association, will focus on a winter wonderland theme. It was created to increase the number of larger events on campus and encourage students to become more involved with campus activities, SPA union activities committee chair Chelsie Portier said.

“Nicholls has become such a commuter school that many students just go to class and then go home or to work after and never take the time to enjoy anything on campus,” Portier said. “Our goal with this event is to provide the students and Nicholls community with a fun and exciting environment that makes them want to be a part of things on campus.”

Other campus organizations, including Gay-Straight Alliance and Food Advisory Association, as well as the statewide Tobacco Free Living program, will be hosting activities at the event to provide their support.

“We’re trying to work more on collaborating with smaller organizations on campus in an effort to help other organizations have an input in events going on around campus,” Portier said.

Portier stumbled upon the idea for the rink while she was browsing through the storage closet in the SPA offices, where she found unused Christmas decorations set aside for Winterfest, which was canceled last fall.

“I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to utilize decorations we already have and also bring something completely and totally new to this campus,” Portier said. “Living in Southern Louisiana, there are many of our students that have never been ice skating, and although this is not the real thing, it’s the closest you will find in town.”

Iceless ice rinks were first developed in Spain and are now a low-cost alternative to traditional ice rinks, which cost about $190,000 more than iceless rinks each year, to fund the electricity and water necessary to maintain the ice.

Iceless rinks, like the one that will be used for the event, are made up of plastic panels nearly an inch thick. After a wax covering is added to the panels, the surface becomes about 90 percent as slippery as ice and can be skated on with normal ice skates, Portier said.