Almost Summer

Summer begins this coming Thursday. 

The Princeton temperature for Thursday is supposed to be 96. It will be the fourth straight day in the 90s, apparently. Get ready. 

In the meantime ...

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Sarah Fillier and Claire Thompson went first and third in the PWHL Draft this past week. The two were teammates at Princeton on the 2020 ECAC championship team and then again as gold medalists for Canada at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Fillier went first overall, and TB could only think of two other Princeton athletes who were also the No. 1 overall pick in a professional sport draft: Ryan Mollett and Tom Schreiber in Major League Lacrosse.

TigerBlog couldn't figure out why Thompson wasn't already in the league. It turns out that she wasn't in the draft til this year because of the rather flimsy excuse of focusing on medical school.  

There's more information on the draft HERE.

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Who doesn't like to jump in the pool when it's summer, especially when temps hit the 90s?

When TigerBlog was in Indianapolis last week, he walked from his hotel to the NCAA headquarters, which was about a 15-minute stroll. For most of those 15 minutes, TB could see the Marriott, which dominated the skyline and included a huge, multi-floor ad for the upcoming U.S. Olympic Trials in swimming and diving.

They begin tomorrow by the way. 

It's where they will be held that is extraordinary. They will be held in Lucas Oil Stadium, the home of the Indianapolis Colts.

TB didn't get to see inside the building, but it has to be incredible. A regulation Olympic swimming pool has been constructed inside a domed football stadium.

You can read more about the logistics of pulling this off HERE.

Apparently, since TB walked on Capitol Street, he walked past the fire hydrant that pumped one million gallons of water into the pool and another million gallons into the warm-up and warm-down pools.

TB was pretty fascinated to see that USA Swimming made the qualifying times tougher to reduce the number of competitors, which has dropped from 1,600 to 1,000. Among those 1,000, though, are 14 current or former Princeton Tigers.

That's a pretty impressive number. 

You can see their names and events HERE.

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TB laughed when he first walked on Capitol Street last week. Why? It has to do with the 1996 NCAA men's basketball tournament. 

Princeton, as you probably remember, beat UCLA that year 43-41 in what was Pete Carril's last win as Tiger head coach. The game was held in the RCA Dome, which sat where Lucas Oil Stadium now does.

TB shipped Princeton's postseason media guides to Indianapolis, to the RCA Dome. When he got there, the guides were nowhere to be found, and he had to struggle to quickly get them reprinted, which he was barely able to do in time. 

It wasn't until he got back to Princeton after all of that excitement that he wondered whatever happened to the original guides, and when he investigated, he found out that a very nice woman signed for them and put them in a closet.

Turns out, the address of the RCA Dome was 100 South Capitol Street. The guides were delivered to 1 South Capitol Street, Room 100.  

They were probably still there in 2007, when the building was torn down.

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TigerBlog has three Happy Birthday wishes for today, for college roommate Charlie Frohman, for longtime friend Tracy Lorenz Wolk and for Zack DiGregorio, who needs no introduction.

Zack, by the way, is seven days older and one foot shorter than Lior Levy, the oldest child of Howard and Riva Levy. Happy birthday to Lior as well.

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Welcome to Princeton Jordan Evans. 

The newest addition to Carla Berube's women's basketball staff comes to Princeton from High Point, where she finished her playing career and then started her coaching career. Prior to coming to High Point, she played for two years at Niagara.  

Also welcome to Princeton Pat Harris, who joins the field hockey staff as an assistant coach. Harris has been a member of the U.S. men's national team for nearly 25 years, and he has spent 15 years coaching and playing in Europe.

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Have a great weekend.