Skaters claim ice conga line record

EXETER, N.H., Feb. 28 (UPI) -- It's not official yet but organizers think the 266 skaters who formed a conga line in a New Hampshire boarding school's ice arena Sunday set a world record.

Phillips Exeter Academy students students Brian Weiniger, 18, and Michael St. Denis, 17, have to submit the paperwork to Guiness World Records but they think it's a done deal that the current record of 252 people doing the conga on ice has fallen, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported.

"I'm ecstatic. It's an unbelievable feeling right now," Weiniger said after the 15-minute skating dance line event was over.

Some of the participants hadn't planned on being part of the attempt and had to scramble to find skates. Some didn't even have matching pairs of skates as they skated to chants of "Don't let go!" accompanied by Miami Sound Machine's "Conga."

"These are from the boys' locker room. I don't know whose they are, but they smell delightful," hockey mom Linda Cross told the newspaper before strapping them on.

Weinger and St. Denis will find out before long whether they've helped set a world record. It will take longer to learn whether their feat will make them more famous than some other Phillips Exeter Academy alumni, such as U.S. Sen. Daniel Webster (1796), U.S. President Franklin Pierce (1820), football pioneer Amos Alonzo Stagg (1880) and noted authors Booth Tarkington (1889) and John Knowles (1945).