EVANSTON — After opening the lockout-shortened NHL season with the first set of games on Saturday, officials from the Norris University Center have sent an urgent plea to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to cancel more games, citing the need for “ice maintenance.”

Norris issued a press release that stated, “Our ice-readiness experts have spent years studying the advanced science of what is frozen water and what is not. It is their belief from viewing the NHL’s Saturday games that these arenas have not adequately chilled their ice. Therefore, we are calling on the NHL to cancel all games until the ice is ready.”

Leslie Herd, a retired ice inspector for Norris, gave some insight on why officials made their recommendation. “You can’t simply reduce the temperature until the water is frozen…There are factors like humidity, barometric pressure, and the Coriolis effect that you have to consider, and of course, water can only become frozen on alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays in the second week of the month. Without these conditions, you can’t get water down to -40˚ Fahrenheit where it finally freezes, and so Norris officials concluded the NHL had not met the proper specifications for making ice.”

Norris officials further elaborated that the soonest they expected the ice to be ready is 2015.

Both the NHL and commissioner Bettman have declined to comment on the recommendation from Norris because they’ve already surpassed their 2013 quota for productive actions.

Plex Sealed in by Snow; Residents Fail to Notice

EVANSTON – On April 22, members of Northwestern’s Happiness Club dissolved their organization due to the 34 degree weather. For some context, it was 78 at Emory, 84 at Rice, and 69 at Vanderbilt at the time the decision was made. Just saying.

“It just wasn’t worth it anymore,” said former Happiness Club president Ben Ulman. “I don’t even know if there is such a thing as happiness when it’s grayer outside than the area in the Protess situation.”

The Happiness Club’s last event involved putting their yellow smiley face stickers on the ground as it rained. According to Ulman, they wanted it to look as if the smiley face was crying.

“Northwestern still has a lot to offer,” said former Happiness Club member and tour guide Alyssa Novasad. When asked to elaborate, Novasad paused, said something to herself that sounded like Parseltounge or Xhosa (it’s hard to tell the difference; both languages use clicks and trills), and then said, “Well, umm, half our student body doesn’t really like to go out.”

But the Happiness Club appears to be as dead as Nietzche, leaving a bright spot that… Oh, brightness! What I wouldn’t give for some warmth, for the smell of tulips in the soft summer breeze, the feel of hot asphalt on the sole. That, my friends, is happiness. I would join that club.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony,” Ulman or Ghandi or maybe Novasad said.

Rain or shine, says Ulm… You know what I think? the rain is not God crying because He feels bad for us, but Him laughing so hard He cries at the notion that such smart people would actively choose to live in Evanston. When it thunders, it is God keeling over at the idea an educated group of mortals would choose to live this far from the equator when they could live in such places like Orlando or Mexico City or even Nebraska.