Snow storm: teammates stranded

After the monstrous snowstorm that hit New York in mid November, the Niagara Women’s basketball team found themselves in a bit of a predicament: they were snowed in for 24 hours on their bus. With over six feet of snow and below freezing temperatures, the girls were forced to ration their water and food, and deal with each other in some pretty close quarters.

As a club athlete who travels around the country to compete, the thought of being stranded in a snowstorm with my teammates against my will is just terrifying. Don’t get me wrong, I love my teammates. However, extreme weather and building frustration over helpless conditions does not mix well.

I may be a little introverted in my view, but I go to tournaments to play and then leave and be alone for as long as possible. After hours of sharing hotel rooms and arguing over whose bed is whose and, “Why didn’t you make that play?”, the last thing I want to do is be stranded with my team, let alone look at them.

There have been times when our team’s flights are delayed for hours at a time, and the only company available is the girl next to me who loves to go on about Johnny from science class who keeps looking in her direction, or about the English essay due the next day. I just spent the entire weekend listening to you complain about how you can’t hit a ball to save your life. Little does she know I’m not even listening to her story, but loathing her for striking out looking with the winning run on third.

According to Niagara’s coach, the team had a rough weekend on the court. Can you imagine bottling the brewing tension between teammates in a 30- foot bus for 24 hours? I’m sure the heat from all those confrontations would be enough to make up for the dropping temperatures.

Tips for traveling: make friends on your team. If you’re going to be stranded in a snowstorm, it would make it a little bit easier to have those one or two teammates you can trust to not aggravate you. Making enemies will not help you. In all that snow, it wouldn’t be hard to cover up a dead body.

Long story short, learn to love your teammates. You never know when you’ll have to cuddle with them to survive.