The University of Connecticut’s Student Union Board of Governor’s (SUBOG) held a game of Squishmallow bingo on Monday, Feb. 10. UConn students gathered in the Student Union Ballroom to play a series of bingo rounds to win one of many different stuffed animals, known as Squishmallows.
Although the event was hosted by SUBOG, the bingo games were run and announced by Conor Geary, also known as “GameDay Conor.” Outside of his work as a Squishmallow bingo announcer, Geary also announces for UConn basketball and football.
Geary announced the numbers for bingo in addition to acting as the judge of the games and determined who won in case of ties. Popcorn was served throughout the event.
The event included five rounds of bingo, although each round had multiple winners. Each round of bingo had three or four Squishmallows as prizes, which increased in size as the games continued. The first winner of each round of bingo had the first choice of Squishmallows, and any subsequent winners could choose a Squishmallow from the remaining pool.
The event opened at 5 p.m., but the games didn’t start until about 5:15 p.m. Unfortunately, SUBOG quickly ran out of chairs — by the time 5 p.m. arrived, most of the room was already filled and members of SUBOG soon had to turn people away from the event.
Although the first round of bingo was relatively tame, round two was much more eventful. The first winner of the game turned in an unfinished card, not having realized that they were meant to make an X shape as opposed to the standard bingo line. Shortly after Geary turned them away, two students sprinted to Geary’s stage to secure a prize.
Geary had established a tiebreaker rule at the beginning of the event: to protect against ties, a bingo winner had to high-five him before turning in their bingo card. As a result, any winner of bingo was rocketing across the room to make sure they got a prize, including these two students, one of whom fell onto the stage after losing the race.
The most intense round of the night was easily the fifth and final, organized in a blackout game — to win, a participant had to cover every square on their five-by-five bingo card. Not only did this suspenseful game take much longer, but it also had a much greater prize in the form of four extra-large Squishmallows. To the Squishmallow fans, each individual stuffed animal was their white whale.
The first winner of the final round was Jolie Atwood, an eighth-semester student double majoring in molecular and cellular biology and pathobiology.
“I thought the event was really fun,” Atwood said. “I really liked the addition of GameDay Conor as the announcer. He always makes things better! I also just love bingo, but the squishmallow prizes were a plus.” Atwood had won a giant purple stingray Squishmallow, which was the first of four to be won.
The second and third Squishmallows were soon won by other participants, until there was just one left: Pierogi the Banana Monkey.
After Geary called what would be the final number of the night, two participants leapt out of their seats, with the second having sprinted across the room, but only to be just a second too late to Geary’s hand. Geary pointed out the effort that the second student had gone through, and decided the tie would be settled with a best-out-of-three game of rock-paper-scissors.
The second student ultimately won the game, securing Pierogi for themself. However, the first student still went home with a compensation prize of a teddy bear and a crewneck.
“I would definitely recommend events like this to other students,” Atwood said. “It’s an easy and low-commitment activity, and it gave me a chance to talk to some people I might not have before!”
The event ended at around 6:25 p.m. The organizers of the event briefly played “Closing Time” by Semisonic as the participants left the room.
“Squishmallow Bingo” was the first of five events for SUBOG’s “Winter Week” of activities. As outlined on the SUBOG Instagram, the event is followed by Tuesday’s Frosty Fest, Wednesday’s Sweetheart Studio, Thursday’s Comedy Show (featuring Daniel Franzese, who played Damien in the movie “Mean Girls”), and finally One Ton Sundae on Friday.