Ice Bowl 2012's goal for charitable fundraising was $300,000. As late reports have come in, we're now tantalizingly close. As of October 15, with 230 events reporting, the total stands at $297,247 and 79,173 pounds of food. These events drew 13,481 players, helpers, and supporters. The average snowfall per event was 1.63" and the average temperature was 38.5°F.

You can now sign up to run an Ice Bowl® in 2012. If you would like to learn more about what running an Ice Bowl entails, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to get an Ice Bowl 2012 information file. If you're ready to go, hit the event registration link above.

Every year, we set a collective fund raising goal for Ice Bowl. For 2011, it was $300,000, and we're quite pleased to report that with 233 events reporting, that 12,368 disc golfers from the USA, Canada, Finland, and Norway raised a total $275,893. In addition, almost 60,000 pounds of food was donated. As we gear up for Ice Bowl 2012, we expect the totals to go up when we renew our efforts to get the 30 or so events who are missing to get their numbers reported.

Perennial top fund raisers, the Mile High Disc Golf Club of Colorado and the Saint Cloud (Minnesota) Disc Golf Club continued to anchor Ice Bowl with donations of $15,139 and $14,766 respectively. Special mention goes to both John Bird of the Mile High Ice Bowl and Rick Rentz of the St Cloud Ice Bowl. for their tireless and awesome commitment to Ice Bowl fund raising.

Here's a list of the top-20 fund raising events, which accounted for nearly 40 percent of the money raised so far. Each listing contains the event's name, location, money donated, pounds of food donated, and the names of the charities:

1. Mile High Ice Bowl, Arvada, Colorado, $15,139, 75, Food Bank of the Rockies, Arvada Community Food Bank
2. Saint Cloud Ice Bowl, Saint Cloud, Minnesota, $14,766, 104#, Caritas Food Shelf, Salvation Army, St Joesph Area Food Shelf, Central Minnesota Community Foundation
3. 7th Annual Tallahassee Ice Bowl, Tallahassee, Florida, $7,230, 2,475#. America's Second Harvest of the Big Bend
4. Joel Viggers Memorial Ice Bowl, Chattanooga, Tennessee, $7,228, Victim Offender Reconciliation Program -VORP
5. Buffalo Ice Bowl, Orchard Park, New York, $6,605, 150, Hunters Hope Foundation / Buffalo City Mission
6. J-Town's Second Annual Ice Bowl, Channahon, Illinois, $5,700, 471, Morning Star Mission
7. Tulsa Ice Bowl, Tulsa, Oklahoma, $5,643, 321#, Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma
8. Grand Valley Disc Golf Ice Bowl 2011, Palisade, Colorado, $5,620, 350#, Grand Valley Catholic Outreach Soup Kitchen & Kids Aid Backpack Program
9. Calgary's 10th Annual Ice Bowl, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, $5,462    350#, Calgary Women's Centre
10. Ice Bucket V, Waterbury Center, Vermont, $5,055, Waterbury Area Food Shelf and the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf
11. Freezebee Ice Bowl, Troy, Michigan, $4,650, 3,570#, Detroit Capuchin Soup Kitchen
12. 2011 San Antonio Disc Club Ice Bowl, San Antonio, Texas, $4,442, 121, Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children
13. 5th Annual Jericho Lake Ice Bowl, Aurora, Illinois, $4,043, 615#, Interfaith Food Pantry & the Hesed House
14. Durham Discs Ice Bowl 2011    Durham Bridge, New Brunswick, $3,404, 1,426, Heart and Stroke Foundation Of New Brunswick & Stanley Food Bank
15. Jefferson City Ice Bowl 2011, Jefferson City, Missouri, $3,109, 82, Samaritan Center of Jefferson City
16. Kansas City Ice Bowl, Kansas City, Kansas, $3,100, Bishop Sullivan Center
16. Ashe Park Ice Bowl    Jefferson, North Carolina, $3,100, Ashe County DSS "Chills for Meals"
18. Hazelwood Ice Bowl - St. Louis Series    Hazelwood, Missouri, $3,000, 921, St. Louis Area Food Bank
19. Wichita Ice Bowl, Wichita, Kansas, $2,820, 34, Kansas Food Bank
20. 14th Annual Ice Bowl, Williamsburg, Virginia, $2760, 620#, Rick Tortone ALS Fund & the York County Food Closet

Please visit the Ice Bowl 2011 page at Facebook for many photos, not only from 2011, but from previous Ice Bowls. Also, an excellent article was penned by Joe Feidt for DiscGolfer magazine. You can download a PDF of it here.

This following article was originally published in the Fall 2010 issue of DiscGolfer, which is now in the mail to its 13,000+ subscribers, and currently on sale in pros shops. To subscribe to this fine publication, please visit http://www.pdga.com/discgolfer-magazine.

Important Notice: Registration for Ice Bowl 2011 is now open.

Ice Bowl Closes in on 25 Years and Is Bigger than Ever
by Rick Rothstein, Ice Bowl Instigator

The first Ice Bowl was held January 18, 1987, when 34 intrepid disc golfers trundled through five inches of snow at Albert-Oakland Park in Columbia, Missouri. Two months later, in the inaugural issue of Disc Golf World News, we ran a brief story about the Ice Bowl, promising to promote a national “Ice Bowl Sunday” on the Sunday before the Super Bowl as a day of “disc golf solidarity” and “a remembrance that the disc golf season will return.” We suggested that it shouldn’t cost too much and that “you might want to make a pot of chili or build a fire.”

In the ensuing 24 years, Ice Bowl has not merely thrived, it has become synonymous with charity, fun, and community within the disc golf world. Like most visions, it has evolved. The idea of getting everyone to play on the same day was quickly abandoned, first to an Ice Bowl Weekend and finally to the Ice Bowl Corridor, which now is any weekend in January and February. At the first Ice Bowl, we prohibited wimps and it was a few years later that “whiners” were added to the no-fly list, thus completing the “No Wimps, No Whiners” tagline that is still with us.

Merchandising began in the early 90s. Thanks to the Indianapolis Disc Golf Club, which first made its Ice Bowl a fundraiser for its local food bank, raising money for a charity became an important component of Ice Bowl. In 1996, we began to insist that Ice Bowls raise money for charity. Since then, we’ve tracked almost 2,200 Ice Bowl events that have drawn more than 216,000 participants, who have raised more than $1.6 million and nearly 415,000 pounds of food.

We are very pleased to announce that Ice Bowl 2010 added 222 events, more than 11,000 participants, $259,768 to charity, and nearly 34 tons of food to the historical totals. Even with 29 events that we’re trying to chase down numbers from, Ice Bowl 2010 had more events, more players, and most importantly, the most money raised than any other year.

As the founder of Ice Bowl, I call myself the Instigator, because I’m the one who gets things going each year, emphasizing that the events should be about fun and charity and getting good local publicity. Of course, it’s the work of the hundreds of dedicated tournament directors and their crews who do the heavy lifting that make the Ice Bowl one of the most positive promotional grassroots programs in disc golf. Last year, I trademarked Ice Bowl to help ensure that events using the Ice Bowl name raise money for charity, with an emphasis on fighting hunger.

This year’s record numbers are even more impressive because the weather during the winter of 2010, while possibly not the worst ever, was definitely wacky. With unusually cold weather in the South in January and snowfalls of historical proportions in the East in February, many players really gutted it out this year. Nearly half a dozen Ice Bowls were canceled because the authorities closed the parks as a safety precaution.

In Moundsville, West Virgina, 10 inches of fresh snow made getting to the park difficult and getting around the course challenging; snow drifts were chest-high. In Pierre, South Dakota, and Jefferson, North Carolina, the drifts were merely waist high. In Brandon, South Dakota, 30 inches of snow made a single round take longer than four hours. TDs from Huntsville, Alabama, and Shreveport, Louisiana, both commented that Southerners are not fond of cold weather after enduring subfreezing events. Despite the chaos that bad weather causes, it also brings beauty. At the Ashtabula, Ohio, Ice Bowl, golfers were afforded great views of a frozen Lake Erie, while in Pierre, South Dakota, players witnessed little icebergs floating down the Missouri River.

It was during February that the weather bureau reported that every state in the United States had snow on the ground but one, which makes it very ironic that the Shave Ice Bowl in Hawaii, the only state with no snow on the ground, was canceled— because of a tsunami warning brought on by the earthquake in Chile. Fortunately, no tsunami materialized, but 60 families decamped on the back nine, which had been designated an evacuation zone. This presented the opportunity for the golfers who had camped overnight to introduce the sport to some new people. Although not a disc was thrown, the Shave Ice Bowl still raised $920, as all the preregistrants but one told the Food Bank to keep their entries when a refund was offered.

Enjoying communal meals continues to be a popular part at many Ice Bowls, where chili is easily the ubiquitous entree. In fact, there are some towns where the chili contest competition is more heated than anything that occurs on the course. Not every one eats chili. In fact, the TD from Atlanta reported that his event had the “best lunch of any Ice Bowl.” A bold statement perhaps, but it is really hard to argue with a menu of antipasto, salad, flatbread with steak and jumbo shrimp, and truffles for dessert, prepared by a professional chef. In Shreveport, it was beef and vegetable stew. In addition to chili in Jefferson City, Missouri, there was shepherds stew, soup, and pulled pork. There was BBQ with four cases of Flying Dog beer in Walkersville, Maryland.

We thank all the Ice Bowl organizers and the thousands of dedicated disc golfers who supported Ice Bowl 2010 by attending official Ice Bowl or affiliated events. We’ve listed the top-25 fundraising towns in one of the charts. These events accounted for nearly 45 percent of all money raised. A special shout-out goes to John Bird of the Mile High Disc Golf Club who raised more than $15,000, making this club the top Ice Bowl fundraiser for the second year in a row.

If there have been no Ice Bowls in your town, it’s time to begin the tradition. For information about how to get started, contact the Ice Bowl Instigator Rick Rothstein at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 888.237.6884, but only if you’re not a wimp or a whiner.

Ice Bowl 2010—The Cold Numbers
Events: 222
Participants: 11,736
Total Cash Donations: $259,768
Total pounds of food: 67,451
Average Temperature: 35.3¡F
Average Snow on the Ground: 5.1 inches