The first disc golf Ice Bowl was held in January of 1987 at Albert-Oakland Park in Columbia, Missouri. It was an attempt by Rick Rothstein, the Ice Bowl Instigator and current coordinator, to get some disc golfing activity going in the dead of winter. News releases were issued, and on the Saturday night before the Ice Bowl, it snowed five inches. The results were good as both 34 people and the media showed up. There was a picture in the sports section of the Monday edition of the Columbia Daily Tribune - disc golf in Columbia got some great publicity.
Since then, the Ice Bowl has continued to evolve, growing to an Ice Bowl weekend the next year, which led to an Ice Bowl Corridor of six weekends in 2001 to today's Ice Bowl Corridor of eight weekends in January and February. In 1996, charity was added as an important component of Ice Bowl.