At the sound of a whistle, eight hungry human “hippos” lay on inner tubes and slide on their bellies to the center of the District Wharf ice rink, scrambling to capture their “food” for the day: 1200 multi-colored balls bouncing and sliding around the ice. Players slam their baskets over their meals, pushing and dodging one another as they slip back to safety, balls in tow.
Hungry Hungry Hippos happens to be the second-favorite board game of DC Fray Founder and CEO Robert Kinsler (Monopoly tops the list). Now, his company’s Hungry Human Hippos is taking the game life-sized.
“It’s a life-sized version of the board game that many of us remember from our childhood,” Kinsler says. “We turn each participant into a hippo and put them on ice, because everything is more fun on ice.”
DC Fray—the company behind social sports events all over D.C.—got the idea after collaborating with Sport and Social Industry Association club members in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who had already been hosting a similar event, Kinsler says. For the past three years, DC Fray has hosted D.C.’s version at the MedStar Capitals Iceplex in Ballston.
This year, the action moved to a smaller venue at The Wharf. The smaller capacity allows for about 150 participants, while the iceplex can accommodate up to 250. Since the game has moved to the trendy Wharf location, Kinsler says it’s become more popular: Tickets to the first two 2019 events sold out within about a week of being offered online.
“I would definitely say this sold out more quickly than our iceplex just because of the location and because it’s a smaller capacity here,” Kinsler says. “It moved very quickly this year.” The next events are slated to move back to their former, larger home at the iceplex.
The game works like this: Teams of four to six players gather at different corners of the rink, with one player lying on an innertube tied to a rope while holding onto a basket called the “mouth.” Players have 2 and a half minutes to slide their “hippo” to the center and trap the multi-colored balls into their basket before pulling them back to their home corner. The rest of the team grabs the balls and empties them into their “kitchen,” another basket used to count up their total, and sends the hippo back out again.
After three games, the top eight teams that collect the most balls move on to the semi-finals, and then the top four teams move on to the grand finals. The winning team wins $100 of DC Fray credit and swag bags for each player.
On Saturday, teams including Hangry Hangry Humans, Hippos Don’t Lie and even The Wharf staff’s own Wharfapotamus participated in the slippery challenge.
Warm clothing is a must, but costumes are encouraged. Best friends Sarah Linder and Kristie Hildreth decked out in hippo hats while representing their team, Girl Scout Drop Outs.
“We’re going to put the smallest person on the tube and the rest of us are just going to work really hard to push out, pull back and then make sure that we don’t screw her up so that she pulls as many balls back as possible,” Hildreth says, describing their strategy. “We want to go with the wind and not against it.”
By the time they had finished their third round, they wrangled up a whopping 606 balls, securing their spot in the semi-finals, DC Fray coordinator Maliaka Mealy says. They’d snagged 297 balls in just one round, while most people usually grab somewhere between 60 and 100.
As soon as Linder and Hildreth saw the event on Facebook, they knew it was something they wanted to do and grabbed their tickets immediately. Others weren’t so lucky.
Niki Nour, a member of the three-person team Children of Blood and Bone, says that tickets were already sold out by time she and her friends formed a team. They bought their tickets from another group that decided not to go (and inherited the name, which is based on a young-adult novel). Nour said that the chances of their winning was slim since their team was so small. (DCist declined the request to join their ranks.)
“At first we came in with a very competitive mind, but … the point of this is to have fun, and that’s what really counts,” Nour says.
Watching the spectacle is just as fun, said David Molina, a member of the team A Little Bit Chowder Now—even cathartic. His favorite part?
“Watching the people slip and fall on the ice,” he says.
The next Hungry Human Hippos event will be held at the Medstar Iceplex on Mar. 16. You must be at least 21 years old to participate, although children are welcome to watch. $30.
