Hundreds of Canadian university students race concrete toboggans in Terrebonne
Posted January 27, 2025 3:00 pm.
Last Updated January 27, 2025 5:56 pm.
A unique and long-standing competition made its way to Quebec over the weekend, with a team from Ontario ultimately taking home the top prize.
More than 400 engineering students from some 20 different universities across Canada came together Saturday at Groupe Plein Air Terrebonne for Canada’s Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race.
North America’s largest and longest running engineering competition was being hosted in the Montreal area for the first time since 2006.
“So cool that you meet people from across Canada, because there’s so few opportunities to get together with people from all over,” said Isabel Gramiak, a civil engineering co-op student at the University of Alberta.
BACKGROUND: Canadian concrete toboggan race set to ‘sleigh’ in Montreal this weekend
The competition, which began in 1974, brings hundreds of university students and alumni to snowy hills across the nation.
Teams design and build a toboggan with concrete running surfaces. Each toboggan must weigh less than 350 pounds and carry five teammates.
Competitors are judged on their design abilities, project management skills, safety criteria, spirit, and more.
“This competition really encourages freedom of creativity,” said Stefan Nakonechny, also a civil co-op student at the University of Alberta.
“But kind of the main rules are you have to have your toboggan fit within the shipping crate … then we have a weight limit, so 350 pounds our toboggan must weigh. We have to have a working braking, steering system, and all running surfaces that touch the snow have to be made completely out of concrete.”
A team from Western University clocked in at a speedy 32 kilometres per hour coming down the hill.
And a team of alumni – the 1998 champions from the University of Waterloo – raced with their award-winning toboggan the “Circle of Death.”
“It was kind of actually a joke toboggan, a second toboggan from our team,” explained Waterloo alumnus Mark Tigchelaar.
“At the time the rules were a little different, the toboggan had to have a concrete running surface, a braking system and a roll cage.”
In the end the big winners were the University of Toronto, but participants all around told CityNews they had a fun-filled race day.
