Ivy Opener

The field hockey team takes on Dartmouth Saturday afternoon in the first Ivy League contest by a Princeton team this academic year.

Here at Princeton Athletics, we often refer to the fact that Princeton has won the Ivy League's unofficial all-sports points standings. In our current context, it has been 22 straight years. How is this determined? Simple. Each of the 33 official Ivy League sports is given equal weight. First place is worth eight points, followed by seven for second and six for third and so on. Points are split evenly in case of a tie for a place finish, so two teams that tied for second would get 6.5 points each. In the event that a sport with fewer than eight teams (men's lacrosse, for instance, has seven), the winner still gets eight points.

The Ivy League office does not officially recognize an all-sports champion, and to honor the wishes of that group, we're careful to use the term "unofficial."

Officially, Princeton played 191 head-to-head Ivy League contests last year with a record of 124-65-2. That's a winning percentage of .654.