Small World

Here's how small the world has gotten: TigerBlog sent a text message to former Princeton men's lacrosse manager Allison Binns the other day and within minutes got a response saying "I'm in Zanzibar."

Think about that. The world is tiny. A text message from New Jersey and a response from Zanzibar. In a few seconds.

Think about how mass communication has changed. TigerBlog was telling his friend Todd yesterday about how when TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog were in nursery school, it was his job to create the phone list for when the weather was bad. If school was closed, then someone would call TigerBlog and he in turn would start the phone calling chain from there.

Now if school is closed, TB gets a voicemail, email and text before he ever wakes up. Phone lists? Hah. What are those?

Todd countered with the idea that if a typhoon were to happen somewhere in a remote area of the Pacific, it would be international news in minutes. If the same thing happened 20 years ago, how would word ever spread?

TigerBlog has sort of wondered how basic news traveled as recently as 100-150 years ago? How did word get around, for instance, that a new President had been elected? Or how did vote tallies get sent on to where they were centrally counted?

TB would say it made it easier to cheat in elections, but in some ways it seems like it's never been easier. But hey, he digresses.

Actually, he isn't digressing, since he hasn't actually gotten to the point yet.

Oh yeah. Communication.

TigerBlog was watching the final between the U.S. and Canada at the World Lacrosse Championships when the broadcast crew began to interview Bill Tierney, the former Princeton men's lacrosse coach who is currently the head coach at Denver, where the tournament was held.

In addition to talking about how the game was going, Tierney also talked about how he had played in the over-60 division in the tournament. TB knew that Tierney was going to be doing this, since he had seen Tierney the week before the World Championships and Tierney had mentioned it.

TB wanted to ask Tierney how he did, so he texted him. A few moments after the interview, Tierney responded, saying he'd scored four goals in four games, the U.S. had won and he had sore Achilles.

Canada defeated the U.S. 8-5 in the final. The game was played at an excruciatingly slow pace, but it was perfect for the Canadians, who got the lead and sat on it. The rules had stalling warnings but no shot clock, and the U.S. defense could force the Canadians out of possession until it was way too late.

As an aside, Tierney said he would be shocked if there wasn't a shot clock in men's collegelacrosse next year and that he would welcome it. TigerBlog would be okay with it, though he has to be the only one who thinks that the current rules are pretty good, with the so-called invisible shot clock after a timer-on is declared by the refs. Maybe clarify the rules to have more uniformity to when the timer on is called.

Anyway, as of now, the Canadians have won the championship for the third time. The U.S. has won eight. Nobody has won any.

Also, nobody is getting all that close to winning one. The Iroquois are the third-best team, and they only lost to the Canadians by one the first time around. They then were hammered by the U.S. in pool play and by the Canadians in the semifinals.

Australia is the fourth best team, but there's no way the Australians are beating the U.S. and Canada. Israel, for that matter, almost got the Australians, falling 9-8 in the quarterfinals.

The dominance by two countries helps keep lacrosse out of the Olympics. On the other hand, the lacrosse world is growing significantly.

Tierney mentioned that when he coached the U.S. team  in 1998 - the Americans won - there were 11 nations who competed. This time, there were 38 teams in Denver.

Among them was Uganda, who not only became the first team from Africa to play in the World Championships but also won two games. The Ugandan offensive coordinator is Princeton alum Tom Schreiber, who described his guys as "truly amazing."

Clearly they were the rock stars of the tournament. Everywhere the Ugandans went, they were met by crowds who roared their approval. And why not? This was a country that didn't have lacrosse maybe three years ago, and here they were, playing and winning games in Denver.

The ESPN coverage of the event was tremendous.

Almost all of the U.S. games were on the TV networks, and many other games were on ESPN3. TigerBlog watched a few of those games on his phone.

It's how a sport grows.

And how the world gets smaller.