Winter Festival postponed

South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary Club moves outdoor event to Feb. 17-18

SOUTH PORTLAND — Last summer, when the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary Club decided to celebrate its 50th birthday by sponsoring the city’s first-ever Winter Festival, it seemed like a brilliant idea. That’s because, last summer, everyone presumed we would have a winter.

As it turns out, the two-day event, originally scheduled for last weekend, has been postponed to Feb. 17-18. The Rotary Club's 15-member Festival Committee came to that unanimous decision late last Tuesday, after The Current's deadline for the Feb. 2 edition.

"Mill Creek Pond on the Hinckley Drive side was unsafe," explained Festival Committee Chairman Dan Mooers, Wednesday afternoon. "It was mushy and if you got too close to the edge, you broke through. We didn’t think that was safe and saw no forecast that indicated the situation would improve before Friday."

However, Mooers says "everyone agrees" the region is due for an arctic blast sometime between Feb. 7 and 14 that'll make the pond perfect for the planned events, including chuck-a-puck contests, a curling competition using frozen turkeys in place of the traditional Scottish stones, and an all-star hockey game pitting Rotary and city officials against players from the Portland Pirates and the Maine Mariners, in addition to an ice skating demonstration and a family skate party.

Mooers also says the delay will give the Rotary more time to pile up manmade snow, in the event the predicted cold snap does not bring with it any precipitation. Although the town has been piling snow in Thomas Knight Park were "human sled dog" races will be conducted, the Rotary has had less luck with its own snowmaking efforts in Mill Creek Park, site of the great snowman-making contest.

Despite the postponement of most festival events, an accompanying "scavenger hunt" began Feb. 1 as planned, in part because it is not weather dependent, but also because the Rotary had already advertised it on 2,500 flyers distributed to students at South Portland elementary and middle schools.