Ice Watch not all it was cracked up to be this year

KENT — For the ninth time in its 32-year history, the Kent Volunteer Fire Department’s Ice Watch fundraiser ended before it  had a chance to begin.

In this contest, participants pay for chances to guess the time and date when the ice on the Housatonic River in Kent will break.

A special tripod was placed on the river surface on Sunday, Feb. 14, five days ahead of when the contest was supposed to begin on Friday, Feb. 19, at midnight.

However, when the sun came up on Friday, the ice started to melt before noon, approximately 12 hours before the contest was supposed to start.

According to organizer Bill Rundall, volunteers had to retrieve the tripod as it moved down the river.

“Because of this, the contest did not even begin,†Rundall said. “Obviously we could not put the tripod back out there because there was no ice on the river. This winter has been quite unique when it comes to weather.â€

The contest will now go to a fishbowl drawing at the fire department’s annual dinner at the Kent School on March 6.

Rundall said that ticket sales for this year’s contest have reached more than $1,000.

According to the fire department’s Web site at kentfire.org, the last time a drawing was held to determine an ice watch winner was in 2008.

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