A snowball fight is a physical game in which balls of snow are thrown with the intention of hitting somebody else. The game is similar to dodgeball in its major factors, though typically less organized. This activity is primarily played during months when there is sufficient snowfall.
Today, the activity is notable for its prominence in the western world. Modern snowball fights tend to have very loose official regulation or constant properties, and so can only loosely be referred to as games. However, a common snowball fight played for fun will often have these characteristics
3,749 students and alumni of Michigan Technological University, as well as members of the community, set the world record for most people engaged in a snowball fight on February 10, 2006.
However, historical studies of snowball fights point to Leuven, Belgium as the actual snowball capital of the world. A recent snowball fight there (on October 14, 2009) broke the world record for the largest snowball fight ever recorded in history. Students from the University of Pennsylvania helped create and fund this fight which reached 5,768 participants, the largest yet recorded.
On February 6, 2010, some 2,000 people met at Dupont Circle in Washington D.C. for a snowball fight organized over the internet after over two feet of snow fell in the region during The North American blizzard of 2010. The event was promoted via Facebook and Twitter. At least a half-dozen D.C. and U.S. Park police cars were positioned around Dupont Circle throughout the snowball fight. Minor injuries were reported.
On December 9, 2009, an estimated crowd of over 4,000 students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison participated in a snowball fight on Bascom Hill. There were reports of several injuries, mainly broken noses, and a few incidences of vandalism, mainly stolen lunch trays from Memorial Union. The snowball fight was scheduled weeks in advanced, and was helped by the fact that the University canceled all classes due to 12-16 inches of snow that fell the night before. However, this snowball fight failed to break the record set in October of the same year in Leuven.
