The Thursday night broomball league dropped its first puck at Gallatin Ice last week. Twelve teams took the rink in sneakers and hockey helmets, chasing a blue ball the size of a grapefruit. The ice was fresh. The brooms were new. The penalty box smelled like wax and old equipment.

Midvalley Merchants faced off against the Bridger Bowl Lifties in the opener. The Merchants led 3-1 after two periods on the strength of two goals from Dave Haskins, who works at the hardware store on Main Street and treats the broom like a push broom. The Lifties rallied in the third when their goalie, a ski patroller named Marta, left the crease and scored on a breakaway.

“The line held until it didn’t,” said Merchants captain Tom Vandeberg, 42, who sells irrigation supplies and has played every Thursday since 2014. “We had the boards covered. Then Marta decided she was a forward.”

The league runs ten weeks. Playoffs follow. The championship trophy is a spray-painted broom mounted on a piece of beetle-kill pine. Last year the Lifties won it in overtime after the Merchants’ goalie lost a skate blade on a rut near the blue line.

Registration was $325 per team. That covers ice time, refs, and the end-of-season banquet at the Elk’s Lodge. The Elk’s Lodge serves prime rib. The prime rib is good.

Spectators sat in the bleachers with thermoses. A few brought camping chairs. Someone’s golden retriever slept on the concrete near the Zamboni door. The Zamboni driver, a man named Earl, waved between periods.

The next game pits the MSU Engineering Grad Students against the Belgrade Fire Department. The grad students have a spreadsheet. The firefighters have a shift schedule. Both teams say they’re just here for the prime rib.

Earl resurfaced the ice. The rink fell quiet except for the blade.