Taking A Hammer To A Chocolate Bunny

You know those big chocolate Easter bunnies, the ones that are solid throughout the body but hollow in the ears?

The really big ones?

TigerBlog loves the littler ones. The big bunnies are far too problematic.

For starters, when he bites into the ears, they collapse all over the place. And when he bites into body, well, it goes nowhere. If he tries to break off a piece of the body, all he gets are really little pieces until ultimately he has to almost take a hammer to the bunny to get any sort of worthwhile reward.

When TB was a kid, his grandmother used to buy him and BrotherBlog the little bunnies, which came like 10 to a package. Now that was quality chocolate - even for a Jewish kid.

TB's connection to Easter isn't quite like that of some other members of his religion, like, say, Judah Ben-Hur, who witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus - after Judah had been through a lot, including a stint with the Roman Army's rowing team and some horseback riding.

This Sunday is Easter Sunday, which means the supermarket was flooded with holiday candy. TigerBlog went into this in depth a year ago.

A few years ago, TB also wrote about the dilemma that the Ivy League has in scheduling athletic events around religious holidays, especially Easter, which always falls on a spring Sunday, which would mean Ivy baseball and softball.

As TB said four years ago, there's nothing the league can do. It can't start deciding which religious holidays are worthy of having no events and which ones are okay.

As a result, the weekend that begins with Good Friday and lasts through Easter is stocked with huge athletic events.

Maybe the biggest is tonight, when Princeton hosts Penn State in men's volleyball.

TB doesn't know much about volleyball, including how to keep stats at a match.

What he doesn't know is that Penn State is always good and Princeton has spent most years looking up in the standings at the Nittany Lions.

One exception was 1998, when Princeton defeated Penn State and advanced to the NCAA tournament, which in men's volleyball consists of four teams. In 1998, it sent Princeton to Hawaii.

This year, Princeton is on a roll, having won five straight EIVA matches, including last night's win over St. Francis. The Tigers are now 8-2 in the league, while Penn State comes to Dillon at 9-1.

Princeton hasn't beaten Penn State since 1998, and the closest the Tigers have come was last year at Dillon, when the Nittany Lions fought off eight match balls to win the fifth game 37-35.

This year? A win and the teams are tied. A loss and Penn State is in control for the regular season title, but Princeton is already headed to the EIVA playoffs.

Tomorrow is a big rowing day at Princeton, with all four crews at home, something that will result in racing all morning.

There is a big men's lacrosse game on campus, as Princeton hosts Brown. The Tigers are 1-1 in the league, and both games have been one-goal games, while Brown is 1-0 with a win over Harvard. Brown is playing its third game in six days; Princeton hasn't played in eight days, since the 10-9 win over Yale last Friday.

A good side note - only twice in the last 30 years (1991, 2002) - have both Princeton and Brown reached double figures in a game against each other. This year, both average more than 12 goals per game.

The women's lacrosse team is at Cornell tomorrow in another big Ivy early-season game.

And the men's tennis Ivy opener against Penn.

And then there's baseball and softball, who have their home openers tomorrow and Sunday, with Yale and Brown here.

In other words, it's a fairly busy weekend.

All of those events, and all except for men's lacrosse completely free.

Happy Easter to all.