Snowball fight

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A snowball throw in Boston

Four college students from Montclair State University attack their friend during a snowball fight.

A snowball fight is a physical game often played by young people in which snowballs are thrown with the intention of hitting somebody else. The game is very similar to dodgeball. Obviously, this activity can only be played during months when there is sufficient snowfall.

The activity is notable for very loose official regulation or constant properties, and can therefore only loosely be referred to as a game. However, a common snowball fight played for fun will often have these characteristics:

The crude formation of "teams", usually two bodies of players throwing at each other.
Snowballs are usually not thrown at the face, but rather at the body.
Those in a fight often do not behave malevolently; a target is usually not viciously assaulted by snowballs.
There is minimal physical contact, aside from perhaps wrestling.
In contrast to other forms of fighting, there is usually no intention of bodily harm.
The construction and use of snow forts.
Ice balls made from hard ice rather than soft snow and inserting hard objects such as rocks into snowballs are considered poor sportsmanship and can cause an injury.

[edit] Current World Record

3,745 students and alumni of Michigan Technological University along with locals set the World Record for Largest Snowball Fight on February 10, 2006.

During the American Civil War, on January 29, 1863, the largest military snow exchange occurred in the Rappahannock Valley in Northern Virginia. What began as a few hundred men from Texas plotting a friendly fight against their Arkansas camp mates, soon escalated into a brawl that involved 9,000 soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia. [1]