Hockey Player Builds Colorful Igloo Outside of College Dorms

— -- As much of the East Coast prepares to hunker down in anticipation of Winter Storm Jonas, one Minnesota college student spent his weekend building a colorful igloo that will allow him to spend more time out in the snow.

Mitch Fritz, of St. John’s University in Collegeville, already spends a lot of time around the ice -- the freshman is a hockey player who was looking for some downtime in between practices.

“I’m not much of a gamer, or a video game guy, so it was just a way to spend more time outside,” Fritz said.

He bought a bulk pack of 500 bread tins, filled them with water and laid them all outside to freeze. Fritz added food coloring to the “building blocks” to give the igloo a glowing, stained-glass look.

As for blueprints, Fritz said he just “winged it” when figuring out the design of the igloo and building it took up the better part of Sunday and Monday -- about 15 hours total.

Fritz has tried to build igloos before, he said, but past attempts have melted before they were finished.

Fritz said he is fine with sharing his igloo, as it’s located in front of his dorm on the St. John’s campus.

“I’ll be walking out of my dorm and see people taking pictures in it and inside it," he said. "It’s so cool to see the reaction of everyone on campus."