Crowd gathers downtown for winter fun

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - This weekend's warmer temperatures forced the Labatt Blue Pond Hockey Tournament to cancel its second day because of unsafe ice conditions.

But another winter festival continued downtown on Sunday.

The sunshine certainly brought out the crowds to the first ever Powder Keg Festival in downtown Buffalo.

Broom hockey, snow tennis and a giant ice maze were all downtown.

Laurel Holmes of Buffalo commented, "I've been working in this building so I've been watching them build the maze, so it's really cool."

This ice maze set a world record.

"I think there was a 3 1/2 hour wait yesterday to get through the ice maze," explained festival organizer, Jeff Empric.

News 4's Michele McClintick gave it a try and got lost just a few times, but then took the easy way out.

She remarked, "I'm just following everybody else!"

After just a few minutes, Michele made it through and so did Joe and Rob Tirone.

"All the women are still in there," Joe said. "They wanted to go one way and we wanted to go another, and now here they are!"

Just two of the girls made it.

The warmer temperatures made things a little sloppy downtown.

Pat warned, "Wear a good pair of boots and you're all set for the day."

Colden Tubing Company donated tubes for the weekend of fun.

Organizers believe over 70,000 people came out to the festival all weekend long, and the warmer weather forced the Labatt Blue Pond Hockey Tournament to cancel it's second day.

City crews were out at 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning to test the ice.

City engineer, Don Polito said, "We have a couple cracks out there. We were starting to get concerned about it and just skatability, we didn't want somebody getting injured while they were skating."

Unfortunately, Mother Nature gives Buffalo the snow and cold, but she can also take it away.