With fall sports coming to a close, boarding students tend to find themselves with a surplus of free time in between fall and winter or fall and spring sports. With all this extra time, a boarder will find the urge to banish boredom. The junior class has put this time to good use.

From huge outdoor games of hide and seek to simplistic games devoted to speed and reflexes, the junior class is constantly seeking ways to entertain themselves during their free time. Many ideas come from old childhood games as the class seeks ways to make an easy game difficult with built in handicaps.

It may sound surprising, but juniors who board spend less time staring at a screen and more time moving around and being competitive. 

Most games begin entirely out of pure boredom or ingenuity. One game, involving a bouncy ball and two people fighting to catch it, bears resemblance to a game like Jackpot but is defined by quick play in tight spaces.

While many games are loosely based on originals, rules are changed to make the games more flexible and balanced.

“We shift around the rules so the games end up balanced, and that makes it more fun because we created the rules ourselves,” Colin Christo ‘21 said.

Some people have even taken a leadership role in creating and organizing new games. Luke Gutschewski ‘21 organizes fun and fast games that everyone can play. These “pioneers” think of new and exciting ways to make old games new again. 

“I like making the rules to a game and seeing how people play it and work with it,” he said.

While he may be the rulebook authority, Gutschewski always works with others to make sure the rules are fair.

“Fairness is always an issue, but Luke does a good job of making sure there is a balance and that each game is challenging but not impossible,” Jason Nyamatore ‘21 said.

The games, popular among many, appear to keep coming as the juniors seek ways to crush boredom. 

“When you don’t have anything else to do in the dorms, you try to get creative and find a new way to have fun, and that’s what makes the games popular,” Nick Davis ‘21 said.