Opening Face-Off

Think you'll be thirsty tonight? 

The place to be is the Ivy Inn on Nassau Street. Why? Because of the guest bartender. 

Howard Levy, a player and coach with the Princeton men's basketball team and currently the head coach at Mercer County Community College, will be behind the bar from 6-8 this evening as part of a fundraiser for his Vikings, as all tips will benefit the MCCC Foundation for athletic scholarships. 

In addition to his basketball successes, Howard is also a lawyer. He's passed one bar exam in his life; tonight you can see first-hand if he passes another. 

Once you're done with Howard, you can head home and watch the opening game of the World Championships of men's lacrosse. The 10 days of the tournament starts tonight at 10 Eastern time on ESPNU with what in all likelihood will be a preview of the championship game July 1, as the United States meets Canada to kick things off.

The tournament is being held on the campus of San Diego State, with the game tonight and then the semifinals and final to be played in the new 32,000-seat Snapdragon Stadium. The remainder of the games will be held either in the 6,000-seat Torrero Stadium or on the adjacent fields.

In all, there are 30 countries who are represented, and they are split into six groups of five each. The U.S. and Canada are obviously in the top division, along with Australia, England and the Haudenosaunee. 

The lowest division, by the way, has Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Peru and Korea. 

The teams in the lower divisions will play each other and then play off to move up in the world rankings. The top two teams in the top division are assured of quarterfinal spots, where they will be joined by the winners of the playoff round that features the rest of the top division and teams from the B and C divisions.

The first World Championship of men's lacrosse was held in 1967 in Toronto, where the U.S. defeated Australia in the final. The next event was in Melbourne in 1974, when the U.S. defeated England in the final.

Since then, it's been an every-four-year thing, except for this tournament, which was delayed a year post-pandemic. The U.S. has won 10 and been the runner-up three times, never failing to reach the final. 

Canada has reached the final nine times, winning three. The math says that the U.S. and Canada have met in nine of the last 11 finals, including six straight. The two rivals have split the last four championships.

The two are also overwhelming favorites to get to the final again, and that is where the trouble comes in for TigerBlog. 

Princeton is represented by three players in the tournament, two for the U.S. and one for Canada. Tom Schreiber will literally be "Captain America" as he is known, as he will be one of the three U.S. captains, and he is back after scoring the game-winner with one second left in the 2018 final in Israel.

Making his international debut with the men's national team is Michael Sowers, Princeton's all-time leading scorer. Sowers was also the leading scorer on the U.S. U-19 team that won gold in 2017.

On the other hand, there is Zach Currier, who will again be on the Canadian team. Currier and Sowers are teammates in the Premier Lacrosse League on the Waterdogs, and they won the championship last summer. Currier has also been a champion in Major League Lacrosse, the National Lacrosse League and the indoor World Championships.

How can TB root against any of those guys? 

There is nobody more competitive that TB has ever met than Zach Currier. The way the 2018 final ended, with a few questionable calls that went against Canada that enabled the U.S. to get the possessions that led to the tying and winning goals.

The game tonight kicks it all off. There will be 107 games in all, and they can all be seen on either an ESPN network or on ESPN+.

So as a reminder, if you're in the Princeton area, then it's the Ivy Inn with Howard Levy from 6-8 and then home for the lacrosse game.

Knowing Currier the way TB does, he assumes that the Canadian has not forgotten what happened. He'll certainly be doing what he always does, which a little bit of everything in the way no other player in the world can right now, but with even more of a chip on his shoulder than usual. 

And knowing Howard the way he does, TB would guess the big man isn't going to be watching, so he'll have to offer an inducement — say, $100 to the scholarship fund from TB if Howard watches the lacrosse game.