The Michigan Tech mascot is an important symbol of pride and spirit for the university's athletic teams and student body. The mascot, known as Blizzard T. Husky, exemplifies the school's strong and resilient nature. Blizzard T. Husky is a Siberian Husky breed and signifies attributes such as strength, determination, and loyalty. These qualities align with the university's values of hard work, perseverance, and community spirit.
These qualities align with the university's values of hard work, perseverance, and community spirit. The mascot's name, Blizzard, pays homage to the university's location in the snowy Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Blizzard T.
Curse of Dracula?
A scream echoes through the old house on the hill in Transylvania. A man in a black cape flies down the stairs. Outside a storm threatens. But even in Dracula’s hometown, evil is not what it used to be. The man in black is Hans Bruno Frolich, a Lutheran priest. The shriek comes from his young daughter, playing upstairs in the parish house.
And a few cobblestone streets away at the Club Dracula Internet Cafe, the only thing diabolical is the price of a drink.
“It’s purely commercial,” says Holom Adrian, who works in the basement cafe, explaining the decision to name the club after the town’s most famous son and tack up a few paper bats. “It’s just a business opportunity. It’s marketing.”
AdvertisementFather Frolich takes a different view.
“This Dracula legend deforms real history,” he says. “It’s not compatible with the Christian faith in any case. You might make money exploiting Dracula, but it makes a very bad image for Romania. In America and Europe, it’s Transylvania equals Dracula. That’s all anyone knows. This is a country with a great history and culture.”
Fourteen years after the collapse of communism, Romania has few growth industries. Dracula, to the chagrin of some here, is one. But as the country tries to take advantage of its notoriety as the home of Bram Stoker’s fictional vampire (who shares a name with a real 15th century Romanian prince, Vlad Dracula, who was born here around 1431), a chorus of critics worries that the country is, in essence, selling its soul to the devil.
Disneyland of the undead
Nothing has sparked more controversy than the government’s on-again-off-again proposal to build a huge Dracula theme park. “Mickey Mouse with fangs, lots of vampire kitsch, by the sound of it,” says Elizabeth Miller, an English professor in Newfoundland who is the president of the Canadian chapter of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula, a scholarly organization dedicated to the study of its namesake, both real and imagined.
In 2001, Tourism Minister Matei Agaton Dan announced the building of a $32-million Dracula theme park, sort of a Disneyland of the undead, with a castle, faux torture chamber, rides, shops and a 700-room hotel. All of which was expected to eventually draw more than a million visitors a year to Sighisoara.
The project, however, seemed cursed from the beginning. The venture had to use the name Dracula Park, since a Romanian hotel had already trademarked the preferred Dracula Land. And the tourism ministry had to sponsor a school competition to come up with a new look for Dracula when Universal Studios demanded royalties from the usage of any Bela Lugosi-like vampire imagery.
Then, like the climax of any good vampire story, the priest showed up. Frolich and a small group of locals attacked the idea of dedicating a park to the Prince of Darkness.
Advertisement“I understand that the financial situation in Romania is very bad,” Frolich says, “but I’m a priest and I can’t say this is a good way to make money.”
The Romanian Orthodox Church, the dominant denomination in the country, also objected. “We are not glad that Romania will be associated with Dracula,” declared Bishop Vincent Ploiesteanu, perhaps a bit tardily. “We are disturbed by the name Dracula.”
The tourism ministry responded with a short video called “Dracula and the Good Lord,” claiming that a theme park would be a way to educate visitors about Romania’s spiritual history.
Before long, even the U.N. was involved -- or at least UNESCO, which lists Sighisoara as a World Heritage Site and complained that the development threatened the town’s historical integrity. Greenpeace protested the plan to cut down an ancient oak forest to make room for the park. And last year, Britain’s Prince Charles, a patron of the preservation organization Mihai Eminescu Trust, took up the issue with Romania’s president after a visit to Transylvania. “The Dracula-land Park,” the trust wrote in an open letter to the government, “will turn the history of Romania into a cartoon. It will ridicule Romania.”
Early this year, the tourism ministry declared that the park would be built outside of Bucharest, in Snagov, where Vlad Dracula is said to be buried. The government floated a $5-million bond issue to raise money for construction, but most of the investors bailed out last month when the new tourism minister, Miron Mitrea, announced that the park was not one of his priorities. Days later, Prime Minister Adrian Nastase went on state television to insist that the park would still go ahead.
“I suppose it’s OK,” Dracula scholar Miller says of the theme park, “as it will bring some badly needed tourist dollars into Romania. But I am concerned that it will serve to further exacerbate the confusion between fiction and history.”
That confusion is evident in Sighisoara, where a jewel-box citadel of 16th century architecture crowns a hill overlooking a river and forest-covered mountains. Vlad Dracula’s reputed family abode has been turned into the Dracula House Restaurant, featuring such dishes as Dracula soup (tomato). A 4-foot-tall sign showing a toothy and cape-bedecked vampire points the way in case tourists get lost. Stores sell T-shirts adorned with a likeness of the real Vlad (whose long hair, cap and mustache make him look more like a biker than a vampire) and statuettes of a blood-sucking fiend devouring a naked woman.
“The fact that a restaurant has a name like Dracula is not bad but that it has a vampire sign is not good,” says Adriana Antihi, the director of the nearby Sighisoara Museum, housed in the town’s magnificent medieval clock tower. “People like big names. Dracula is a big name. But the young people don’t know the real story.”
The real Dracula
The real story is even bloodier than the fictional one. Vlad Dracula spent the first five years of his life in Sighisoara and later became the voivode, or ruler, of the neighboring Wallachia principality, where he founded Bucharest. In Romania, Vlad tends to be known by his nickname Vlad Tepes (the Impaler), after his favored form of capital punishment.
The title was well-earned. Vlad lined roads with thousands of his enemies -- men, women, even children -- impaled upon wooden stakes, dying agonizing deaths. When he saw a peasant with a torn shirt, Vlad had the man’s wife impaled for not taking better care of her husband. When several ambassadors declined to remove their turbans in his presence, Vlad had the hats nailed to their heads. One contemporary drawing depicts Vlad tucking into an alfresco dinner in front of a forest of withering impaled bodies.
His enemies wrote tracts with titles such as “The Frightening and Truly Extraordinary Story of a Wicked Blood Drinking Tyrant Called Prince Dracula.” Even when he was imprisoned, Vlad amused himself by impaling mice in his cell.
Yet in Romania, Vlad is a national hero. Romanians still talk about how he could place a gold drinking cup at a public fountain and no one dared to steal the precious vessel. Mihai Eminescu, one of the country’s great writers, penned a poem in the 19th century calling on Vlad to once again save his country.
“Vlad is a model for justice,” museum director Antihi says. “He was very, very strong but just. He fought against the Turks and for the independence of Wallachia. Capital punishment was done by all the great kings of antiquity. He didn’t invent capital punishment. He needed to scare the Turks. Ivan the Terrible was much worse than Vlad the Impaler.”
In 1897, Irish author Bram Stoker borrowed the last name of the historical Vlad for the title of his vampire novel, which he called “Dracula.” Although most of the book takes place in England, Stoker set the beginning and end of his story in Transylvania, which at the time was actually part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not Romania. Miller, an emeritus professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, concludes in her “Dracula Handbook” (Gerot Publishing) that Stoker knew little about the historical Vlad other than his surname. “Vlad was not the inspiration for the novel,” Miller writes, “nor was Count Dracula based on Vlad.”
Still, the two Draculas became synonymous. The popular image of Dracula was cemented by the 1931 Universal Studios version of Stoker’s book, starring Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi, whose widow’s peak, cape and thick accent became the character’s trademarks.
Except in Romania, where 44 years of communism walled off the country from Western pop culture until the 1989 revolution. Stoker’s novel didn’t even appear in translation until 1990.
Recently, Romanians have been trying to make up for lost time. In addition to the park proposal, there is in Bucharest the Dracula Infernal Travel Agency, where the walls bristle with medieval arms instead of the usual landscape posters, and the Count Dracula Club, which touts such dishes as “Renfield’s Surprise” (named after the bug-eating lunatic in Stoker’s novel). And Dracula hotels have been popping up around the country like vampires at sunset.
Divining the park’s fate at this point has become the latest mystery set in Romania. The tourism ministry and the park’s designer, Dan Covali, didn’t respond to interview requests. The once effusive Dracula Park Web site has gone blank. “Closed for maintenance,” a note says. “Will be back online shortly.”
The theme park idea, however, refuses to die. At least three cities (Brasov, Poienari and Bistrita) with connections to both Draculas have announced plans for mini-Dracula parks.
And even if the theme park doesn’t come back to life, Frolich says that he has his hands full trying to keep the fictional Dracula from overwhelming the factual as it is.
“If people visit the church, we tell them the true history,” he says. “In religious class or my work with young people, I tell them exploiting Dracula is a bad thing. But I can’t fight against a bar or a club. It’s a free country.”
A scream echoes through the old house on the hill in Transylvania. A man in a black cape flies down the stairs. Outside a storm threatens. But even in Dracula’s hometown, evil is not what it used to be. The man in black is Hans Bruno Frolich, a Lutheran priest. The shriek comes from his young daughter, playing upstairs in the parish house.
Husky is a beloved figure among students, alumni, and fans alike. The mascot can be seen attending sporting events, engaging with the crowd, and pumping up team spirit. The presence of Blizzard T. Husky helps create an energetic and vibrant atmosphere at Michigan Tech sporting events, encouraging athletes and fostering a sense of community among supporters. In addition to sporting events, Blizzard T. Husky is also involved in various community outreach programs and activities. The mascot makes appearances at local schools, community events, and charity fundraisers, spreading Michigan Tech's positive influence beyond the campus boundaries. The design and appearance of Blizzard T. Husky have evolved over the years, but the essence of the mascot has remained constant. The current design features a friendly and energetic husky with a stylized MT logo on its chest. This design is easily recognizable and has become synonymous with Michigan Tech and its athletic programs. Overall, Blizzard T. Husky serves as a symbol of pride, unity, and enthusiasm for the Michigan Tech community. The mascot helps create a sense of belonging and fosters a strong connection between students, alumni, and the university. Whether seen on the sidelines at a game or engaging with the local community, Blizzard T. Husky embodies the spirit and values of Michigan Tech..
Reviews for "Team Unity: How Michugan Tech's Mascot Brings Athletes Together"
1. Emma - 1/5 - I was really disappointed with the Michigan Tech mascot. It was just a guy dressed in a generic robot costume. There was nothing unique or memorable about it. I expected something more creative and exciting from a university mascot. Overall, it was a letdown and I think they should seriously consider reevaluating their mascot choice.
2. John - 2/5 - The Michigan Tech mascot lacked any real connection to the school or its traditions. It felt like a random choice with no thought put into it. Additionally, the costume design was lackluster and unimpressive. I didn't feel any sense of pride or enthusiasm when I saw the mascot, and it didn't add anything to the overall experience of attending a Michigan Tech event.
3. Sarah - 2/5 - I found the Michigan Tech mascot to be quite underwhelming. The robot design felt outdated and generic, lacking any distinct personality or charm. It failed to ignite any excitement or school spirit. I think the university should reconsider their mascot and opt for something more innovative and representative of their students and community.
4. David - 1/5 - The Michigan Tech mascot was a huge disappointment. It was unoriginal and uninspiring. I would have expected a mascot that represents the unique identity and history of the university, but instead, we got a generic robot. It just felt like a missed opportunity to create something memorable and impactful for the school. Overall, I think the mascot choice was a letdown and does not do justice to the spirit of Michigan Tech.
5. Emily - 2/5 - I was not impressed with the Michigan Tech mascot at all. It didn't embody the energy and enthusiasm that a university mascot should have. The robot costume looked cheap and uninteresting, and it lacked any creativity. I believe the university should go back to the drawing board and come up with a mascot that truly represents the spirit and values of Michigan Tech.