HWS News
8 January 2026 • Athletics Two Minutes in the Lake
A pre-dawn cold-water plunge has become a defining tradition for a team that believes the hardest part of the day should come first.
Before the sun even rises a little after 7 a.m., a compact car sits along the shoreline of Seneca Lake, its engine running. Within minutes, more than a half dozen cars arrive in rapid succession and park nearby, leaving their engines running.
In unison, nine men from the Hobart ice hockey team emerge, slamming car doors as they peel off their coats and shirts to converge on the snow-covered dock in front of 41 Lakefront Hotel. For the fourth time this week, members of the team, which won its third-straight NCAA Division III championship last year, strip down to swim trunks and flip flops to form a line. Many of them begin to hoot and holler in anticipation of the 40-degree-water they’re about to enter.
With heavy, sharp breaths they begin chanting “Two two two two,” to let everyone know for how many minutes they will immerse themselves that morning. Usually, they stay in for three.
When asked why it isn’t enough to just jump in and jump out, the players balk. “That’s not a challenge,” one player shouts. “This is mental warfare,” another adds.
With nearly 30 members this year, the Hobart Hockey team practices weekly through the fall and spring semesters at the Cooler, their home rink five minutes from campus. Before the end of their season, the team will play upwards of 25 games against both conference and non-conference opponents.
During that time, they will have taken more than 100 morning cold plunges, or as they affectionately call them, “chilly challenges.”
“Monday through Thursday, they definitely do it,” says Associate Head Coach and Director of Sports Science Derek Berry. When asked how he feels on a day when he takes the plunge with the team versus the days he doesn’t, Berry says, “I have way more energy. It’s like nature’s coffee!”
And they don’t always arrive at the same time. “We have different schedules. Some people will come at 8:15 if they don’t have an 8 a.m. class," says Team forward Dominic Schimizzi ’26, an economics major. “Others will come at 7:15.” Some of them do it on game days too, he adds.
Team Captain Kahlil Fontana '26, a business management and entrepreneurship major, started the ritual three years ago with three other players: Kevin Lassman '24, Ethan Mulhearn '25 and Cooper Swift '25.
“The idea came from the Polar Plunge that happens on New Year’s Day in a lot of places,” Fontana explains. “Growing up in Vancouver on Canada’s west coast, I saw it as a way to start the year by challenging yourself — doing something hard, something you might not want to do — but doing it together. That’s what made me think about doing it with my team.”
A few of them really loved how the water got their adrenaline going and forced them to do something hard before beginning their day, and Fontana says, it brought them together.
“We noticed, after we started doing it consistently, just how much more energy we had to start our day and how much more inspired we were to go tackle other things. The rest of our day just seems a lot easier,” Fontana says. “On days we don’t come to the lake, we miss it.”
The teammates who started the tradition with Fontana have graduated, but over the years he says, new players and coaches have joined in.
Out of the water, snow crunches as they rush to their robes and towels. They give each other fist bumps and claps on the back.
For Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach Kendall Nemish, who joined the team this year, this was his first plunge. When he gets out, a player congratulates him. “I am feeling good. I feel good,” he insists, through chattering teeth.
Feet and hands tend to hurt the most afterwards, Fontana says. Most of them go home and jump in a hot shower after they defrost enroute. But with the toughest part of the day now done, they say, the rest will be a breeze.
Top: At sunrise, members of the Hobart ice hockey team are joined by Sports Performance Associate Head Coach and Director of Sports Science Derek Berry and Sports Performance Assistant Coach Kendall Nemish for their daily plunge into Seneca Lake.
