WILLOW CREEK — For the second time in his Ice-Out career, Amos Homan’s prediction proved uncanny.
The 76th annual Ice-Out ended with Homan claiming his second championship, predicting the ice would clear at 1:17 PM on April 11. The actual ice clearance: 1:22 PM. Five minutes off.
“I am getting the hang of it,” Homan said with a smile, accepting the winner’s ribbon from First Selectman Arthur Pendelton. “Or maybe the pond is getting used to me.”
Homan is now one of only three multiple champions in Ice-Out history. Only two other competitors have won twice: Walter Thorne (1934, 1941) and a retired game warden from Island Falls (1960, 1968).
“Multiple wins in the Ice-Out are harder than they look,” said Jed Thorne, who has entered every year since 1963 without winning once. “The pond itself changes every year — the water temperature, the wind patterns, the snow cover. To win once is remarkable. To win twice is extraordinary.”
Homan attributed his success to a methodology that combines his father Ezra’s spiral notebook data — 61 years of ice-thickness measurements and barometric pressure readings — with modern weather data and, as he puts it, “a feeling in my knees.”
“I cannot explain the knees thing,” Homan admitted. “My father had it too. He would stand at the edge of the pond and close his eyes. After a minute, he would say, ‘Not yet,’ or ‘Soon.’ He was right more often than the barometer. Something in the body knows when the ice is ready. I just listen.”
Clara Winslow’s editorial ended with a line quoted around town for weeks: “Amos Homan is not just a champion. He is an institution. And institutions, unlike ice, do not melt.”