Snow again? Sigh.
It's enough already. Enough with this winter stuff.
Here's how it's gone around here since Tuesday afternoon. First it started to sleet, which made the ride home really icy. Then it snowed for awhile. Then it sleeted some more as it started to warm up.
Eventually, it got above freezing, so it was just rain. And it rained all day yesterday, on and off at least. Then the temperature fell again, so that snow began.
Of course, every school in the area was cancelled before the snow began. And for awhile, it looked like it might not snow at all. It finally started around 5 AM.
By the time it ends later today, there could be around eight inches on the ground here, though TigerBlog thinks it'll be a little less. And then it's supposed to get cold, record-setting cold single-digit cold.
So, yes. Sigh.
It actually hasn't been that bad of a snow winter around here. Not like it has in Boston, where that city is only two inches away from the all-time record.
There haven't been any complete blizzards in the Princeton area. There's been snow here or there, though never more than five or six inches at once.
What there's been has been cold. Lots of that. It's been below 30 endlessly, for weeks. The normal high right now for Princeton is 47 degrees. The high for this day is 72, in 1991.
Forty-seven? This area hasn't been near that, except for yesterday, when it was in the upper 30s while it rained. Sunshine and a temp in the 40s? Not since December.
Oh well. The 10-day forecast is for a bunch of days like that. Sunshine. 40s. It'll be heavenly.
TigerBlog emailed with his men's lacrosse counterpart at Maryland to tell him that he would be there Saturday. Usual stuff. Media list. Rosters. And parking information.
TB was told that because the Maryland high school wrestling championships will be going on at Cole Field House that he might have to walk a little further than normal. It'll be 43 and sunny? TigerBlog is fine with a little walk.
TigerBlog will be on the road this weekend. So will most of Princeton's athletic events.
The only home events are men's basketball, against Cornell tomorrow night and Columbia Saturday night. And men's volleyball, home with Juniata tomorrow night and NJIT Saturday night. And men's tennis, against Army and Binghamton Sunday in Jadwin Gym.
The men's basketball team is in third place in the Ivy League. Princeton cannot catch Harvard or Yale, who are both 10-2 and tied for first in advance of their showdown tomorrow night in Cambridge.
The Tigers are 6-5 in the league, with the games this weekend and then Tuesday's game at Penn remaining. Cornell, Columbia and Dartmouth are all 5-7. With one win in the last three, Princeton will be no worse than a tie for third.
There are some pretty important events on the road.
The EIWA wrestling championships are at Lehigh this weekend, beginning tomorrow at 10 with first-round matchups;
quarterfinal matches and wrestlebacks will start at 12:30. The
semifinals will begin Saturday morning at 10, with wrestlebacks
scheduled for a 12:30 start. The EIWA Hall of Fame inductions follow, as do the
the 1st, 3rd and 5th place matches.
The path to the NCAA championships goes through this event.
It's hard to overstate how solid of a job Chris Ayres has done as head coach of the Princeton wrestling program. Keep in mind, this was a program that struggled to win a single match, and it is in the same league as Cornell, who is to Ivy wrestling what Princeton is to Ivy field hockey (minus the NCAA title).
This season, Princeton finished third in the Ivy League. The program produced Jonathan Schleifer, Princeton's first ever Ivy League Rookie of the Year. As in ever.
And now Princeton heads to the EIWA meet with six All-Ivy selections, the most in Ayres' tenure.
In addition to the wrestling, the NCAA fencing regionals are this weekend. Princeton, the NCAA champ two years ago, will be looking to qualify the maximum 12 fencers for the NCAA finals.
TigerBlog has no idea how it works. He'll leave it at that.
If you're going to be in Hanover, N.H., this weekend, you're in luck. You can see the Princeton men's hockey team play at Dartmouth in the ECAC opening round, a best-of-three with games definitely tomorrow and Saturday at 7.
And, if you're there, the women's lacrosse team will play its Ivy opener at 1, also at Dartmouth. It's a chance to see both teams play without ever leaving the same parking lot.
Princeton's women's lacrosse team is off to a 3-0 start and is ranked 10th nationally. The Tigers and Dartmouth usually have played in April, but the game is now the league opener this season.
If you're going to be at Dartmouth, you'll also see a snow-lined field.
Of course, you can come here and do that. It's even worse now than it was last week.
Stop. Already.
Stupid groundhog. TigerBlog is ready for spring.
Showing posts with label men's hockey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label men's hockey. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Iced
TigerBlog will start out by saying this: The women's basketball game against Dartmouth Friday night has been moved from 7 to 6.
The game is being picked up by the American Sports Network, who will syndicate it to various affiliates. A complete list will be available tomorrow, probably, and will be on goprincetontigers.com.
In the meantime, if you're going to the game, it's a 6:00 tip.
The men's game against Brown last Friday was switched from 7, which it said on the tickets, to 8, in order to accommodate the ASN. This begs the question of whether or not you'd rather show up at 7 and have missed the first half or 7 and find out that there's still an hour to tip.
With four days until the game, though, TigerBlog is hopeful that anybody who is coming to Jadwin will get the word by then.
And so that's the first thing TigerBlog wanted to say today.
Then there's the Ithaca visitors bureau, which has a website called visitithaca.com.
If you go there, you'll get this pop-up message:
Due to this ridiculously stupid winter, Ithaca invites you to visit The Florida Keys
this week. Please come back when things thaw out. Really, it's for the
birds here now. (Still want to Visit Ithaca? Are you sure? Ok, click here.) P.S. Send us a postcard.
Now how great is that?
The last few weeks have been awful here. They've been even worse in Ithaca.
TigerBlog would like to salute whoever came up with that. It's perfect.
Of course, TB will be in Ithaca April 25 for Princeton-Cornell men's lacrosse. Hopefully it will have thawed out by then.
TigerBlog writes about the weather a lot. What he'll say about it today is that it's pretty cold here. It's one of those days that make you think about how hot it gets in the summer and how you complain about how hot and humid it is and then you wonder why you do that when it's this cold out now because you'd much rather be hot than cold.
Here, TigerBlog will give you the high and low temperatures for two different places in the United States. See if you can guess which is which.
Place A: 27/10, 32/10, 17/-1, 19/3
Place B: 38/24, 33/21, 32/25, 36/32.
Give up?
Place A is Princeton. Place B is Anchorage. As in Alaska.
TigerBlog spent this past weekend mostly chilled, since he spent much of it in Baker Rink, where he saw Princeton play Clarkson and St. Lawrence in men's hockey.
Keep in mind, this is a Princeton team that came into the weekend in last place in the ECAC with a record of 1-14-1. And that Clarkson was in sixth and St. Lawerence second.
So what did the Tigers do?
They beat Clarkson 2-1 and tied St. Lawrence 1-1 in a game that they came within an eyelash of winning when Tucker Brockett came close enough to the game-winner 58 seconds into OT that the refs stopped the game to check the replay.
Princeton goalie Colton Phinney was great in both games, but it's not like he was the only reason his team was successful. In fact both games were completely even contests, and Princeton deserved all three points it got, equaling, by the way, it's previous ECAC season total.
Princeton is in Year 1 under head coach Ron Fogarty, an immensely likeable person with a great sense of humor and a commitment to rebuilding the hockey program, along with his staff. He's one of those coaches that you just know will be successful when you spend five minutes around him, and you can tell by watching Princeton play that it is hardly a team that has given up on the season.
The Tigers played hard all weekend. That much was clear. And they went toe-to-toe with two of the best teams in the league.
To show you the progress Princeton is making, the Tigers lost to St. Lawrence and Clarkson by a combined 7-0 on its trip up there back in November.
Princeton has two regular season weekends remaining, home with Brown and Yale this weekend and then at Dartmouth and Harvard. Then there is the ECAC playoffs.
This past weekend could be a pretty big one in the evolution of the program. Princeton won its league opener against Cornell back on Nov. 7 and then went 0-14-1 in its next 15 ECAC games, with only a 2-2 tie with Brown on Jan. 31 to earn a point.
And then Princeton went 1-0-1 this past weekend. It's one thing to know you're improving; it's another to have some tangible proof to know you're going in the right direction. That's what Princeton got this weekend.
Maybe one day, the Tigers will look back on this past weekend as the starting point of a resurgence.
The game is being picked up by the American Sports Network, who will syndicate it to various affiliates. A complete list will be available tomorrow, probably, and will be on goprincetontigers.com.
In the meantime, if you're going to the game, it's a 6:00 tip.
The men's game against Brown last Friday was switched from 7, which it said on the tickets, to 8, in order to accommodate the ASN. This begs the question of whether or not you'd rather show up at 7 and have missed the first half or 7 and find out that there's still an hour to tip.
With four days until the game, though, TigerBlog is hopeful that anybody who is coming to Jadwin will get the word by then.
And so that's the first thing TigerBlog wanted to say today.
Then there's the Ithaca visitors bureau, which has a website called visitithaca.com.
If you go there, you'll get this pop-up message:
That's it. We surrender. Winter, you win. Key West anyone?
Now how great is that?
The last few weeks have been awful here. They've been even worse in Ithaca.
TigerBlog would like to salute whoever came up with that. It's perfect.
Of course, TB will be in Ithaca April 25 for Princeton-Cornell men's lacrosse. Hopefully it will have thawed out by then.
TigerBlog writes about the weather a lot. What he'll say about it today is that it's pretty cold here. It's one of those days that make you think about how hot it gets in the summer and how you complain about how hot and humid it is and then you wonder why you do that when it's this cold out now because you'd much rather be hot than cold.
Here, TigerBlog will give you the high and low temperatures for two different places in the United States. See if you can guess which is which.
Place A: 27/10, 32/10, 17/-1, 19/3
Place B: 38/24, 33/21, 32/25, 36/32.
Give up?
Place A is Princeton. Place B is Anchorage. As in Alaska.
TigerBlog spent this past weekend mostly chilled, since he spent much of it in Baker Rink, where he saw Princeton play Clarkson and St. Lawrence in men's hockey.
Keep in mind, this is a Princeton team that came into the weekend in last place in the ECAC with a record of 1-14-1. And that Clarkson was in sixth and St. Lawerence second.
So what did the Tigers do?
They beat Clarkson 2-1 and tied St. Lawrence 1-1 in a game that they came within an eyelash of winning when Tucker Brockett came close enough to the game-winner 58 seconds into OT that the refs stopped the game to check the replay.
Princeton goalie Colton Phinney was great in both games, but it's not like he was the only reason his team was successful. In fact both games were completely even contests, and Princeton deserved all three points it got, equaling, by the way, it's previous ECAC season total.
Princeton is in Year 1 under head coach Ron Fogarty, an immensely likeable person with a great sense of humor and a commitment to rebuilding the hockey program, along with his staff. He's one of those coaches that you just know will be successful when you spend five minutes around him, and you can tell by watching Princeton play that it is hardly a team that has given up on the season.
The Tigers played hard all weekend. That much was clear. And they went toe-to-toe with two of the best teams in the league.
To show you the progress Princeton is making, the Tigers lost to St. Lawrence and Clarkson by a combined 7-0 on its trip up there back in November.
Princeton has two regular season weekends remaining, home with Brown and Yale this weekend and then at Dartmouth and Harvard. Then there is the ECAC playoffs.
This past weekend could be a pretty big one in the evolution of the program. Princeton won its league opener against Cornell back on Nov. 7 and then went 0-14-1 in its next 15 ECAC games, with only a 2-2 tie with Brown on Jan. 31 to earn a point.
And then Princeton went 1-0-1 this past weekend. It's one thing to know you're improving; it's another to have some tangible proof to know you're going in the right direction. That's what Princeton got this weekend.
Maybe one day, the Tigers will look back on this past weekend as the starting point of a resurgence.
Monday, December 29, 2014
Watching TV
For those in the greater Princeton metropolitan area who were dreaming of a white Christmas, well, this wasn't the year for it. There was a greater chance of thunderstorms than snow flurries on Christmas Eve as the temperature reached into the 60s.
TigerBlog went for his usual on-campus walk Christmas Day and found more people out and about than he thought he would.
That was followed by more temperatures in the 60s this past weekend, when TigerBlog saw people out in shorts and t-shirts. Princeton will play 13 men's lacrosse games this coming season, and TB figures that maybe three or four will be played on a nicer day than this past Saturday.
If you bought tickets for the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium between Penn State and Boston College, you probably didn't expect it to be warmer for that game that it will be for most April baseball games played there.
You also were in the minority of people who actually attended a bowl game.
TigerBlog watched enough of a few of the games to be astonished by how empty the stadiums appeared to be, the sold-out Pinstripe Bowl notwithstanding. TB then read a story in the USA Today that basically said that nobody associated with the bowls is all that concerned, because the television ratings - and revenue - continue to be very good, and isn't that all that matters?
The USA Today story mentioned that all but one bowl game a year ago outdrew the opening day Yankees-Red Sox game. Maybe that's because discerning viewers realized that the 2014 Yankees and Red Sox would both be bad.
Or, more likely, it's because football so dwarfs anything else on television these days.
And so that's why there continue to be all of these bowl games played in front of all these empty seats. It's because the market can sustain it, driven by television revenue.
Would you rather have your bowl game sold out or on TV? You would think sold out, but the answer is quite the opposite.
And what does this mean for non-bowl games? And for Princeton? Is the future going to feature fewer and fewer fans at games? Sigh. That's for another day.
As for the bowl games themselves, TigerBlog hasn't watched any of them from start to finish and has no actual on-field comment to make, because nothing has stood out other than the very, very ugly fight between BYU and Memphis and that wild Hail Mary-ish touchdown that one team scored against another team on the final play.
TigerBlog is so disinterested in the bowls that he can't even remember which teams they were. Western Kentucky was one maybe?
He does know that the play was pretty wild, and it made the score 49-48 after the team that scored had trailed 49-14 in the fourth quarter.
Okay, TigerBlog got a little curious. The other team was Central Michigan. And its coach, Dan Enos, is now a TB favorite after going for two to try to win the game.
Yes, the conversion failed and Western Kentucky held on. But hey, at least he had some guts. He had the momentum. His team was hot offensively. His odds were better than 50-50 at that point, even if it didn't work out.
The NFL regular season has come and gone now. The Giants played 64 quarters, and TigerBlog probably watched fewer than 20 of them.
Okay, the Giants weren't very good. And perhaps TB is spoiled by the last two Super Bowl wins. Or maybe he's just not into watching games on TV as much as he used to be.
He watched some of the Giants-Eagles game yesterday.
He then watched more of the Princeton-Quinnipiac men's hockey game than he did the late NFL games.
Actually, this is for another day also, but TB watched the game Saturday between the Tigers and Bobcats on videostream and the game Sunday on ESPNU. What was the difference? It wasn't huge. And there are important lessons for the future here too.
But not for today.
For today, the ESPNU game was a 1-0 Quinnipiac win. It was also a great showcase of Baker Rink and Princeton hockey.
Quinnipiac swept Princeton this weekend, and the Bobcats find themselves in first place in the league. Princeton is now tied for 11th in its first season under head coach Ron Fogarty.
Oh, and speaking of Fogarty, he had a great quote afterwards when he said that the game cost him $8, since he had to get a haircut for TV.
TigerBlog knows next to nothing about hockey, but he's impressed with Fogarty and his staff. They have a plan to rebuild the program on the ice, and they have great, forward-thinking, advanced thoughts about building the program, the brand as it were, off the ice.
They are great promoters of Princeton hockey, and they have a great sense of how to generate interest in the team and its players.
It doesn't hurt that Baker Rink is a great place to see a game. Yesterday's game was sold out, for instance.
Okay, Princeton didn't win. Still, it was a pretty good day for Princeton hockey.
And TB hopes, and is fairly confident, that there are better days ahead.
TigerBlog went for his usual on-campus walk Christmas Day and found more people out and about than he thought he would.
That was followed by more temperatures in the 60s this past weekend, when TigerBlog saw people out in shorts and t-shirts. Princeton will play 13 men's lacrosse games this coming season, and TB figures that maybe three or four will be played on a nicer day than this past Saturday.
If you bought tickets for the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium between Penn State and Boston College, you probably didn't expect it to be warmer for that game that it will be for most April baseball games played there.
You also were in the minority of people who actually attended a bowl game.
TigerBlog watched enough of a few of the games to be astonished by how empty the stadiums appeared to be, the sold-out Pinstripe Bowl notwithstanding. TB then read a story in the USA Today that basically said that nobody associated with the bowls is all that concerned, because the television ratings - and revenue - continue to be very good, and isn't that all that matters?
The USA Today story mentioned that all but one bowl game a year ago outdrew the opening day Yankees-Red Sox game. Maybe that's because discerning viewers realized that the 2014 Yankees and Red Sox would both be bad.
Or, more likely, it's because football so dwarfs anything else on television these days.
And so that's why there continue to be all of these bowl games played in front of all these empty seats. It's because the market can sustain it, driven by television revenue.
Would you rather have your bowl game sold out or on TV? You would think sold out, but the answer is quite the opposite.
And what does this mean for non-bowl games? And for Princeton? Is the future going to feature fewer and fewer fans at games? Sigh. That's for another day.
As for the bowl games themselves, TigerBlog hasn't watched any of them from start to finish and has no actual on-field comment to make, because nothing has stood out other than the very, very ugly fight between BYU and Memphis and that wild Hail Mary-ish touchdown that one team scored against another team on the final play.
TigerBlog is so disinterested in the bowls that he can't even remember which teams they were. Western Kentucky was one maybe?
He does know that the play was pretty wild, and it made the score 49-48 after the team that scored had trailed 49-14 in the fourth quarter.
Okay, TigerBlog got a little curious. The other team was Central Michigan. And its coach, Dan Enos, is now a TB favorite after going for two to try to win the game.
Yes, the conversion failed and Western Kentucky held on. But hey, at least he had some guts. He had the momentum. His team was hot offensively. His odds were better than 50-50 at that point, even if it didn't work out.
The NFL regular season has come and gone now. The Giants played 64 quarters, and TigerBlog probably watched fewer than 20 of them.
Okay, the Giants weren't very good. And perhaps TB is spoiled by the last two Super Bowl wins. Or maybe he's just not into watching games on TV as much as he used to be.
He watched some of the Giants-Eagles game yesterday.
He then watched more of the Princeton-Quinnipiac men's hockey game than he did the late NFL games.
Actually, this is for another day also, but TB watched the game Saturday between the Tigers and Bobcats on videostream and the game Sunday on ESPNU. What was the difference? It wasn't huge. And there are important lessons for the future here too.
But not for today.
For today, the ESPNU game was a 1-0 Quinnipiac win. It was also a great showcase of Baker Rink and Princeton hockey.
Quinnipiac swept Princeton this weekend, and the Bobcats find themselves in first place in the league. Princeton is now tied for 11th in its first season under head coach Ron Fogarty.
Oh, and speaking of Fogarty, he had a great quote afterwards when he said that the game cost him $8, since he had to get a haircut for TV.
TigerBlog knows next to nothing about hockey, but he's impressed with Fogarty and his staff. They have a plan to rebuild the program on the ice, and they have great, forward-thinking, advanced thoughts about building the program, the brand as it were, off the ice.
They are great promoters of Princeton hockey, and they have a great sense of how to generate interest in the team and its players.
It doesn't hurt that Baker Rink is a great place to see a game. Yesterday's game was sold out, for instance.
Okay, Princeton didn't win. Still, it was a pretty good day for Princeton hockey.
And TB hopes, and is fairly confident, that there are better days ahead.
Monday, December 15, 2014
December Notes
TigerBlog starts the week off with a multiple-choice question.
In the picture below, the woman with TB is: A) his cousin, B) a colleague, or C) an award-winning Broadway actress/singer.
If you guessed "C," you'd be correct. If you can correctly identify her by her picture, well, then TB is impressed.
Linda Eder is the woman's name. For the life of him, TigerBlog cannot figure out why she doesn't have multiple Tony Awards and Grammy Awards on her shelf.
TigerBlog has never met anyone who has heard her sing who doesn't rave about her. He also hasn't met many people who have heard her sing.
It has to be her own choice that she's only been in one Broadway show, the musical "Jekyll and Hyde," for which she won a 1997 Theater World Award for Best Broadway Debut. TB's favorite song of hers, "Someone Like You," is from that show.
TigerBlog has seen two of her concerts, including a recent one in which she sang a mix of Christmas songs, Broadway songs and some of her original songs, of which she has written many. She also has a bunch of albums with all kinds of Broadway songs, as well as some with Christmas music.
TigerBlog has 68 of her songs on his iTunes, which puts her in second place behind Bruce Springsteen, just ahead of Train, Bon Jovi and Southside Johnny.
TigerBlog compares her to Judy Collins, whom he has also seen in concert, not so much for the types of music that they sing - Collins is mostly a folk singer - but in how powerful their voices are, what an incredible range they have and how the sound overwhelms the audience from the first note.
Linda Eder is also a great self-deprecating storyteller during her shows. She talked about how she wanted to be Maria as a high school senior in "The Sound of Music," only to be cast instead as the Mother Superior of the convent and then singing "Climb Every Mountain."
She talked about her big choreography move was to go from standing up to sitting on a stool. She talked about missing her 14-year-old son's wrestling match because of the concert.
She seemed like someone who loved what she was doing and appreciated her audience, so much so that she said she'd come out to the lobby to say hi, sign autographs and pose for pictures. For as many times as TB has seen the Boss, he's never once done that.
At one point during the show, she described herself as "just a big Minnesota farm girl who still drives a tractor, owns every power tool know to man and knows how to use them all." TigerBlog would describe her more as an extraordinarily talented woman with a great musical gift, and possibly add the parts about the tractor and power tools after that.
With December and Christmas concerts comes a lull in the Princeton Athletics schedule. Princeton has very few teams who still have events for the rest of the calendar year and into the beginning of 2015, after it all shuts down for two weeks for first semester exams.
Then it's the sprint to the rest of the winter, and only a few weeks until the overlap between winter and spring. Hey, TigerBlog sent a tweet yesterday at 1, noting that it was exactly two months until opening face-off of men's lacrosse season. Two months? It's not even Christmas yet.
This weekend was slow to begin with, and it became even slower when the men's hockey team ran into unforeseen difficulties in Linda Eder's home state.
The Tigers flew to Minnesota Thursday and then bussed an hour from Minneapolis to Mankato to take on the third-ranked team in the country, Minnesota State-Mankato, Friday and Saturday. Only it turned out to be only Friday, as the home team would not field a team for Saturday's scheduled game due to a sudden outbreak of the flu.
As a result, Princeton instead found itself in Minnesota with nothing to do on its Saturday night. It ranks up there with a fall water polo game in the indoor pool that was postponed due to lightning as the most unlikely cancellations of the year, TB supposes.
One team that wasn't stopped was the women's basketball team, who defeated Binghamton 96-58 to become the first Princeton men's or women's team to get to 10-0 in a basketball season, as well as the first Ivy women's team ever - and first Ivy team of either gender since the 1970-71 Penn Quakers went 28-0 to start the year.
Next up? At Delaware tomorrow night.
There are 15 events - assuming they all get played - remaining on the athletic calendar for 2014. Of those 15, 11 are away from Princeton.
The only remaining home games are a basketball doubleheader Friday (women's vs. Portland State, men's vs. Lipscomb) beginning at 5:30. There is also a home men's basketball game against Liberty a week from today and then home men's hockey against Quinnipiac on the 28th.
If you're heading to New York Sunday to see the tree and do some Christmas shopping, you can see Princeton wrestling at Madison Square Garden. Anything called "Grapple in the Garden" has to be pretty cool.
In the meantime, Linda Eder's version of "Do You Hear What I Hear" just came onto TB's iTunes.
And so TB will end today where he began, with Linda Eder.
In the picture below, the woman with TB is: A) his cousin, B) a colleague, or C) an award-winning Broadway actress/singer.
If you guessed "C," you'd be correct. If you can correctly identify her by her picture, well, then TB is impressed.
Linda Eder is the woman's name. For the life of him, TigerBlog cannot figure out why she doesn't have multiple Tony Awards and Grammy Awards on her shelf.
TigerBlog has never met anyone who has heard her sing who doesn't rave about her. He also hasn't met many people who have heard her sing.
It has to be her own choice that she's only been in one Broadway show, the musical "Jekyll and Hyde," for which she won a 1997 Theater World Award for Best Broadway Debut. TB's favorite song of hers, "Someone Like You," is from that show.
TigerBlog has seen two of her concerts, including a recent one in which she sang a mix of Christmas songs, Broadway songs and some of her original songs, of which she has written many. She also has a bunch of albums with all kinds of Broadway songs, as well as some with Christmas music.
TigerBlog has 68 of her songs on his iTunes, which puts her in second place behind Bruce Springsteen, just ahead of Train, Bon Jovi and Southside Johnny.
TigerBlog compares her to Judy Collins, whom he has also seen in concert, not so much for the types of music that they sing - Collins is mostly a folk singer - but in how powerful their voices are, what an incredible range they have and how the sound overwhelms the audience from the first note.
Linda Eder is also a great self-deprecating storyteller during her shows. She talked about how she wanted to be Maria as a high school senior in "The Sound of Music," only to be cast instead as the Mother Superior of the convent and then singing "Climb Every Mountain."
She talked about her big choreography move was to go from standing up to sitting on a stool. She talked about missing her 14-year-old son's wrestling match because of the concert.
She seemed like someone who loved what she was doing and appreciated her audience, so much so that she said she'd come out to the lobby to say hi, sign autographs and pose for pictures. For as many times as TB has seen the Boss, he's never once done that.
At one point during the show, she described herself as "just a big Minnesota farm girl who still drives a tractor, owns every power tool know to man and knows how to use them all." TigerBlog would describe her more as an extraordinarily talented woman with a great musical gift, and possibly add the parts about the tractor and power tools after that.
With December and Christmas concerts comes a lull in the Princeton Athletics schedule. Princeton has very few teams who still have events for the rest of the calendar year and into the beginning of 2015, after it all shuts down for two weeks for first semester exams.
Then it's the sprint to the rest of the winter, and only a few weeks until the overlap between winter and spring. Hey, TigerBlog sent a tweet yesterday at 1, noting that it was exactly two months until opening face-off of men's lacrosse season. Two months? It's not even Christmas yet.
This weekend was slow to begin with, and it became even slower when the men's hockey team ran into unforeseen difficulties in Linda Eder's home state.
The Tigers flew to Minnesota Thursday and then bussed an hour from Minneapolis to Mankato to take on the third-ranked team in the country, Minnesota State-Mankato, Friday and Saturday. Only it turned out to be only Friday, as the home team would not field a team for Saturday's scheduled game due to a sudden outbreak of the flu.
As a result, Princeton instead found itself in Minnesota with nothing to do on its Saturday night. It ranks up there with a fall water polo game in the indoor pool that was postponed due to lightning as the most unlikely cancellations of the year, TB supposes.
One team that wasn't stopped was the women's basketball team, who defeated Binghamton 96-58 to become the first Princeton men's or women's team to get to 10-0 in a basketball season, as well as the first Ivy women's team ever - and first Ivy team of either gender since the 1970-71 Penn Quakers went 28-0 to start the year.
Next up? At Delaware tomorrow night.
There are 15 events - assuming they all get played - remaining on the athletic calendar for 2014. Of those 15, 11 are away from Princeton.
The only remaining home games are a basketball doubleheader Friday (women's vs. Portland State, men's vs. Lipscomb) beginning at 5:30. There is also a home men's basketball game against Liberty a week from today and then home men's hockey against Quinnipiac on the 28th.
If you're heading to New York Sunday to see the tree and do some Christmas shopping, you can see Princeton wrestling at Madison Square Garden. Anything called "Grapple in the Garden" has to be pretty cool.
In the meantime, Linda Eder's version of "Do You Hear What I Hear" just came onto TB's iTunes.
And so TB will end today where he began, with Linda Eder.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Carmody Visits, Isaac Dominates And A Quiet Weekend At Princeton
It was a fairly gray day yesterday in Princeton, with swirling snow flurries and a brisk wind and only one moment where TigerBlog thought he detected a hint of sunshine, only to have it yanked away as a mirage.
TigerBlog was going about his regular Thursday, when all of the sudden a visitor emerged in his doorway.
This happens quite often in TB's office. His door is almost always open, and someone usually strolls in every five minutes or so.
This time, though, was different. This time, the visitor changed the entire tenor of the day.
This time, it was Bill Carmody.
The last time Bill Carmody was in TigerBlog's office was 14 years ago, when he was the Princeton men's basketball coach, before he left to coach Northwestern.
Back then, TigerBlog was the men's basketball contact and was for all four of Carmody's seasons as Princeton head coach. TB first met Carmody in the late ’80s back when he was Pete Carril's assistant and TB was in the newspaper business.
To say that Carmody is one of TB's all-time heroes would be a bit of an understatement. The four years that Carmody was head coach were one continuous great moment after another, as in great teams, great wins, great crowds, great media coverage, great players and great trips.
At the fore of all of it was Carmody, who combined an ultra-competitive personality - visible any time TB ever saw him play lunchtime basketball - with a demeanor that suggested he wasn't really taking any of it all that seriously.
Oh, but clearly he was.
Carmody led Princeton to the 1997 and 1998 Ivy League championships and NCAA tournaments and the 1999 and 2000 NIT. He was the head coach when Princeton came from 27 points back in the second half to beat Penn. He was the head coach who took his team past Florida State, Texas and UNC Charlotte on consecutive nights to win the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii.
As an aside, after one of those games in Hawaii, Carmody was asked by the local media about how every member of his team could shoot from beyond the arc. His response: "Everyone on our team can make a three. Our center can. Our SID can."
The good news is that TB has that one on tape. The bad news is that it's on a mini-cassette, and TB has no way of ever playing it again.
TB asked Carmody how he was, what he was up to. Carmody answered and punctuated it with one of those gestures that TB had seen so many times through the years, the one where he bends his elbows at 90 degrees, extends his hands palms up and then moves his hands in opposite directions.
It was great to see him. It always is.
In other tangential Princeton basketball news, TigerBlog watched some of the current group of lunchtime basketballers for a few minutes yesterday.
TB played at lunchtime for about 12 years or so, before he switched to squash. He would refer to his years of playing as the glory days of Jadwin lunchtime basketball.
Having said that, TB can't remember a time when he saw someone dominate at lunchtime the way Isaac Serwanga did for about five minutes yesterday.
Isaac was a wide receiver on the Princeton football team who also spent time on the basketball and track and field teams. He graduated in 2012.
TB wrote a feature about him for the game program his senior year in which Isaac talked about wanting to go to medical school. Somewhere in there his plans appeared to have changed, as he now works in general administration in the athletic department.
Given that he is a little more than two years removed from being a Division I athlete, it's safe to assume that he could have an impact in lunchtime basketball.
But to this extent? TB saw him throw three great passes - including one where the recipient didn't miss the uncontested layup. Serwanga drove for his own made layup and then knocked down a three-pointer.
Then he took the ball away from Jon Kurian - whose excuse after the fact was that he's 42 years old - and drove down the court to finish the game with a lefthanded dunk. All in all, it was fairly impressive.
If you're looking for more basketball in Jadwin this weekend, there's a women's game tomorrow against Binghamton at 2 (not 2:30, as TB said the other day). Princeton will be looking to get to 10-0 in that one, something that no Ivy League women's team has ever done (of course, no Ivy women's team has ever been 9-0 before), no Princeton men's team has ever done and no Ivy men's team has done since the 1970-71 Penn team did it.
There are only five Princeton athletic events this weekend, involving only four teams, and only two of those events are home - both, interestingly enough, against Binghamton. In addition to the women's basketball game, the wrestling team hosts Binghamton at 7 tonight.
Originally Princeton was also supposed to wrestle Sacred Heart as well, but the Pioneers had to reschedule due to a conflict with final exams. TigerBlog is glad to see Sacred Heart putting academics first.
The men's basketball team is on a plane to California today to play at Cal tomorrow. The men's hockey team is in Minnesota to take on the third-ranked team in the country, Minnesota State-Mankato.
Those two opponents are a combined 20-5-0.
TigerBlog was going about his regular Thursday, when all of the sudden a visitor emerged in his doorway.
This happens quite often in TB's office. His door is almost always open, and someone usually strolls in every five minutes or so.
This time, though, was different. This time, the visitor changed the entire tenor of the day.
This time, it was Bill Carmody.
The last time Bill Carmody was in TigerBlog's office was 14 years ago, when he was the Princeton men's basketball coach, before he left to coach Northwestern.
Back then, TigerBlog was the men's basketball contact and was for all four of Carmody's seasons as Princeton head coach. TB first met Carmody in the late ’80s back when he was Pete Carril's assistant and TB was in the newspaper business.
To say that Carmody is one of TB's all-time heroes would be a bit of an understatement. The four years that Carmody was head coach were one continuous great moment after another, as in great teams, great wins, great crowds, great media coverage, great players and great trips.
At the fore of all of it was Carmody, who combined an ultra-competitive personality - visible any time TB ever saw him play lunchtime basketball - with a demeanor that suggested he wasn't really taking any of it all that seriously.
Oh, but clearly he was.
Carmody led Princeton to the 1997 and 1998 Ivy League championships and NCAA tournaments and the 1999 and 2000 NIT. He was the head coach when Princeton came from 27 points back in the second half to beat Penn. He was the head coach who took his team past Florida State, Texas and UNC Charlotte on consecutive nights to win the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii.
As an aside, after one of those games in Hawaii, Carmody was asked by the local media about how every member of his team could shoot from beyond the arc. His response: "Everyone on our team can make a three. Our center can. Our SID can."
The good news is that TB has that one on tape. The bad news is that it's on a mini-cassette, and TB has no way of ever playing it again.
TB asked Carmody how he was, what he was up to. Carmody answered and punctuated it with one of those gestures that TB had seen so many times through the years, the one where he bends his elbows at 90 degrees, extends his hands palms up and then moves his hands in opposite directions.
It was great to see him. It always is.
In other tangential Princeton basketball news, TigerBlog watched some of the current group of lunchtime basketballers for a few minutes yesterday.
TB played at lunchtime for about 12 years or so, before he switched to squash. He would refer to his years of playing as the glory days of Jadwin lunchtime basketball.
Having said that, TB can't remember a time when he saw someone dominate at lunchtime the way Isaac Serwanga did for about five minutes yesterday.
Isaac was a wide receiver on the Princeton football team who also spent time on the basketball and track and field teams. He graduated in 2012.
TB wrote a feature about him for the game program his senior year in which Isaac talked about wanting to go to medical school. Somewhere in there his plans appeared to have changed, as he now works in general administration in the athletic department.
Given that he is a little more than two years removed from being a Division I athlete, it's safe to assume that he could have an impact in lunchtime basketball.
But to this extent? TB saw him throw three great passes - including one where the recipient didn't miss the uncontested layup. Serwanga drove for his own made layup and then knocked down a three-pointer.
Then he took the ball away from Jon Kurian - whose excuse after the fact was that he's 42 years old - and drove down the court to finish the game with a lefthanded dunk. All in all, it was fairly impressive.
If you're looking for more basketball in Jadwin this weekend, there's a women's game tomorrow against Binghamton at 2 (not 2:30, as TB said the other day). Princeton will be looking to get to 10-0 in that one, something that no Ivy League women's team has ever done (of course, no Ivy women's team has ever been 9-0 before), no Princeton men's team has ever done and no Ivy men's team has done since the 1970-71 Penn team did it.
There are only five Princeton athletic events this weekend, involving only four teams, and only two of those events are home - both, interestingly enough, against Binghamton. In addition to the women's basketball game, the wrestling team hosts Binghamton at 7 tonight.
Originally Princeton was also supposed to wrestle Sacred Heart as well, but the Pioneers had to reschedule due to a conflict with final exams. TigerBlog is glad to see Sacred Heart putting academics first.
The men's basketball team is on a plane to California today to play at Cal tomorrow. The men's hockey team is in Minnesota to take on the third-ranked team in the country, Minnesota State-Mankato.
Those two opponents are a combined 20-5-0.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Minor Sports
TigerBlog is pretty sure Dan Day has heard the "has no grade point average" line before.
It's part of what happens when you share your name with one of the better characters in arguably the funniest movie ever made.
You remember "Animal House," correct? Daniel Simpson Day? D-Day? The guy on the motorcycle?
When the Delta Tau Chi members get summoned to Dean Wormer's office and the Dean goes through their GPAs, he mentions that Daniel Simpson Day "has no grade point average. All classes incomplete."
At the end of the movie, when it is revealed what has happened to each of the main characters, it mentions "Daniel Simpson Day, whereabouts unknown."
D-Day, by the way, grew up to become Sheriff Farley from "My Cousin Vinnie."
As for the other Dan Day, he is currently the Acting Director of Communications and Director of News and Editorial Services for Princeton University. His background is in newspapers, mostly with the Associated Press.
This Dan Day graduated from Holy Cross, and TigerBlog is guessing that he actually had a GPA.
A few days ago, TigerBlog received an email from Day with a subject line of "blog fodder." The email included a link to an archive of Princeton information, much of it about athletics, from the early 1900s.
TB has an old book called "Athletics At Princeton" that traces the intercollegiate athletic history of Princeton from when it first began until right around 1900. The link that Dan sent was something of a continuation of the book.
It was right around the year 1900 that Princeton began to add a bunch of varsity teams. The link from Day labeled these as "Minor Sports."
Included in these "Minor Sports?" Basketball and hockey.
As it turned out, those sports are hardly minor in the intercollegiate athletic landscape.
TigerBlog can't remember where he read this one story about the problem with the end game for basketball, which has become almost tedious for any game closer than 10 points. In that case, the last minute or 90 seconds have become an epidemic of fouls and timeouts, timeouts and fouls.
Go ahead and time how long it takes to play the last minute or so of a close game. It's interminable.
TB has seen a few stories about this of late. One suggested playing games to a certain score, like having NBA games end when the first team gets to 100.
The one TB read yesterday suggested playing college games the way they are now until the under-four media timeout of the second half and then having the game end when the team in the lead scores seven more points. In other words, if Princeton is playing Team X and leads 65-60 at the first dead ball under four minutes, the game ends when the first team reaches 72.
Every game, in this format, would end with a game-winner, and there could be no running out the clock. The story TB read did some research on all of the fouling that goes on at the end of games and found that the team doing the fouling almost never ends up winning and almost always ends up losing by more than it trailed by when it started fouling.
The problem with this format is that, TB assumes, the team that gets to the under-four timeout ahead probably wins an extraordinary amount of the time anyway.
TB would make one suggestion to improve the end of basketball - no coach can call timeout after the final media timeout. Let the players play. Let the game happen.
Of course, TB doesn't get to the make the rules, so he's stuck with the current format.
It'll be on display tomorrow afternoon at Jadwin Gym for a basketball doubleheader, as the unbeaten Princeton women take on Georgetown at 2, followed by the men's game against Stony Brook at 4:30.
As for the other minor sport, Princeton hosts Harvard tonight and Dartmouth tomorrow night at Baker Rink.
Next weekend, Princeton is off to Minnesota State-Mankato for two games. TB figured the temperature there would hover below zero or so, but it's supposed to be in the 40s when the Tigers are there.
Princeton is then off until Dec. 27 and 28, when it plays home-and-home with Quinnipiac. The Tigers next ECAC weekend isn't until 2015, when the Tigers host Union and RPI on Jan. 9 and 10.
Harvard comes to Baker Rink tonight off to a great start at 7-1-2 overall and 3-1-2 in the ECAC. Dartmouth is 2-3-1 in the league; Princeton is 1-5-0.
There is also a home track and field meet Sunday at Jadwin.
It's part of what happens when you share your name with one of the better characters in arguably the funniest movie ever made.
You remember "Animal House," correct? Daniel Simpson Day? D-Day? The guy on the motorcycle?
When the Delta Tau Chi members get summoned to Dean Wormer's office and the Dean goes through their GPAs, he mentions that Daniel Simpson Day "has no grade point average. All classes incomplete."
At the end of the movie, when it is revealed what has happened to each of the main characters, it mentions "Daniel Simpson Day, whereabouts unknown."
D-Day, by the way, grew up to become Sheriff Farley from "My Cousin Vinnie."
As for the other Dan Day, he is currently the Acting Director of Communications and Director of News and Editorial Services for Princeton University. His background is in newspapers, mostly with the Associated Press.
This Dan Day graduated from Holy Cross, and TigerBlog is guessing that he actually had a GPA.
A few days ago, TigerBlog received an email from Day with a subject line of "blog fodder." The email included a link to an archive of Princeton information, much of it about athletics, from the early 1900s.
TB has an old book called "Athletics At Princeton" that traces the intercollegiate athletic history of Princeton from when it first began until right around 1900. The link that Dan sent was something of a continuation of the book.
It was right around the year 1900 that Princeton began to add a bunch of varsity teams. The link from Day labeled these as "Minor Sports."
Included in these "Minor Sports?" Basketball and hockey.
As it turned out, those sports are hardly minor in the intercollegiate athletic landscape.
TigerBlog can't remember where he read this one story about the problem with the end game for basketball, which has become almost tedious for any game closer than 10 points. In that case, the last minute or 90 seconds have become an epidemic of fouls and timeouts, timeouts and fouls.
Go ahead and time how long it takes to play the last minute or so of a close game. It's interminable.
TB has seen a few stories about this of late. One suggested playing games to a certain score, like having NBA games end when the first team gets to 100.
The one TB read yesterday suggested playing college games the way they are now until the under-four media timeout of the second half and then having the game end when the team in the lead scores seven more points. In other words, if Princeton is playing Team X and leads 65-60 at the first dead ball under four minutes, the game ends when the first team reaches 72.
Every game, in this format, would end with a game-winner, and there could be no running out the clock. The story TB read did some research on all of the fouling that goes on at the end of games and found that the team doing the fouling almost never ends up winning and almost always ends up losing by more than it trailed by when it started fouling.
The problem with this format is that, TB assumes, the team that gets to the under-four timeout ahead probably wins an extraordinary amount of the time anyway.
TB would make one suggestion to improve the end of basketball - no coach can call timeout after the final media timeout. Let the players play. Let the game happen.
Of course, TB doesn't get to the make the rules, so he's stuck with the current format.
It'll be on display tomorrow afternoon at Jadwin Gym for a basketball doubleheader, as the unbeaten Princeton women take on Georgetown at 2, followed by the men's game against Stony Brook at 4:30.
As for the other minor sport, Princeton hosts Harvard tonight and Dartmouth tomorrow night at Baker Rink.
Next weekend, Princeton is off to Minnesota State-Mankato for two games. TB figured the temperature there would hover below zero or so, but it's supposed to be in the 40s when the Tigers are there.
Princeton is then off until Dec. 27 and 28, when it plays home-and-home with Quinnipiac. The Tigers next ECAC weekend isn't until 2015, when the Tigers host Union and RPI on Jan. 9 and 10.
Harvard comes to Baker Rink tonight off to a great start at 7-1-2 overall and 3-1-2 in the ECAC. Dartmouth is 2-3-1 in the league; Princeton is 1-5-0.
There is also a home track and field meet Sunday at Jadwin.
Monday, November 10, 2014
A Fairly Full Weekend
Let's see.
TigerBlog went to four Princeton athletic events over the weekend. He watched others on the videostream. He followed Twitter to get updates.
He announced. He wrote. He did stats.
It was a fairly full weekend. Of course it was. How could it not be, what with nine different teams who played on campus.
TigerBlog saw four of them live - men's water polo, women's hockey, men's hockey and football. He watched the women's soccer and men's soccer games on videostream. He kept track of Twitter updates for field hockey, sprint football and women's volleyball.
He actually saw a little of the women's hockey game Friday against RIT live. It was 3-0 Tigers - the RIT Tigers - when TB got there and when he left. Then he went to the pool for a little bit of men's water polo. He got back to his office to see the end of the women's hockey comebck on the videostream, including Morgan Sly's pretty overtime goal to win it.
He then had to help out doing stats at men's hockey against Cornell. This is something that TigerBlog has a demonstrated record of doing poorly.
Lacrosse? He can do that all by himself. He doesn't even need a spotter. Hockey is another story.
TB had what would appear to be the easiest job, doing the shot chart. All he had to do was write down the number of the player on each team who took a shot and where on the ice they were. If the shot was a save, he had to underline it twice. A blocked shot was underlined once. A shot that went wide was left alone. A goal was circled.
TigerBlog failed this miserably. First, because he was sitting in the press box at Baker Rink, he was at above and behind one goal. The paper with the chart, of course, had the goals to his left and right, as if he was sitting at center ice.
As a result, he couldn't figure out his left from his right on the chart without turning the paper 90 degrees. And then he couldn't keep straight which side was Cornell and which side was Princeton.
If he kept the paper turned to replicate the ice, then the numbers he wrote down would also be off by 90 degrees.
It was very stressful.
On the other hand, Colton Phinney had a great 40-save performance, with a few "wow" saves, as Princeton won the game 2-1. The Tigers were up 1-0 early, as in 3:14 in, on a goal by Aaron Ave. TigerBlog's shot chart had him shooting it in the other goal, by the way.
The next time either team scored was 56:01 later, when Garrett Skrbich scored into an empty net. Game over, right? Not exactly. Cornell scored with 16 seconds left to keep it interesting, but that would be it.
As for Saturday, he kept checking Twitter for the field hockey score, and Princeton won that one 4-3. By then, Columbia had lost 4-1 to Harvard.
It was the one scenario that would bring Princeton an outright Ivy title and the league's bid to the NCAA tournament. And it worked out perfectly.
Princeton, the Ivy field hockey champ for the 20th time in 21 years, is going to be a tough out come NCAA tournament time.
Then it was time to do PA at football.
The game dragged for nearly 3.5 hours, with 16 TV timeouts and 98 passes. And it wasn't exactly the most artistic game for much of it.
Still, it was exactly what Princeton needed. A win. And so here is where the Tigers are: tied with Yale and Dartmouth - its last two opponents - for second, one game back of Harvard, who play Penn and Yale.
The Tigers need two wins and at least one Harvard loss, but at least they still have a chance. A loss to Penn would have basically ended that hope.
After that, TB watched the second half of men's soccer on the videostream. Princeton was up 3-2 at the half, and that's how it ended.
Dartmouth defeated Columbia, meaning that Princeton and Dartmouth are still tied for first at 4-1-1, with 13 points. Princeton is at Yale (0-5-1); Dartmouth hosts Brown (2-2-2).
Princeton would lose the tiebreaker for the NCAA bid to Dartmouth because of the OT loss on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium earlier this season. But Princeton also is right in the mix for an at-large NCAA bid either way, and a win over Yale means no worse than a share of the Ivy title.
And with that, TB was able to exhale.
These are the kinds of weekends that TB loves. Lots of teams. Lots of games. Lots to do.
This one was a pretty good one.
TigerBlog went to four Princeton athletic events over the weekend. He watched others on the videostream. He followed Twitter to get updates.
He announced. He wrote. He did stats.
It was a fairly full weekend. Of course it was. How could it not be, what with nine different teams who played on campus.
TigerBlog saw four of them live - men's water polo, women's hockey, men's hockey and football. He watched the women's soccer and men's soccer games on videostream. He kept track of Twitter updates for field hockey, sprint football and women's volleyball.
He actually saw a little of the women's hockey game Friday against RIT live. It was 3-0 Tigers - the RIT Tigers - when TB got there and when he left. Then he went to the pool for a little bit of men's water polo. He got back to his office to see the end of the women's hockey comebck on the videostream, including Morgan Sly's pretty overtime goal to win it.
He then had to help out doing stats at men's hockey against Cornell. This is something that TigerBlog has a demonstrated record of doing poorly.
Lacrosse? He can do that all by himself. He doesn't even need a spotter. Hockey is another story.
TB had what would appear to be the easiest job, doing the shot chart. All he had to do was write down the number of the player on each team who took a shot and where on the ice they were. If the shot was a save, he had to underline it twice. A blocked shot was underlined once. A shot that went wide was left alone. A goal was circled.
TigerBlog failed this miserably. First, because he was sitting in the press box at Baker Rink, he was at above and behind one goal. The paper with the chart, of course, had the goals to his left and right, as if he was sitting at center ice.
As a result, he couldn't figure out his left from his right on the chart without turning the paper 90 degrees. And then he couldn't keep straight which side was Cornell and which side was Princeton.
If he kept the paper turned to replicate the ice, then the numbers he wrote down would also be off by 90 degrees.
It was very stressful.
On the other hand, Colton Phinney had a great 40-save performance, with a few "wow" saves, as Princeton won the game 2-1. The Tigers were up 1-0 early, as in 3:14 in, on a goal by Aaron Ave. TigerBlog's shot chart had him shooting it in the other goal, by the way.
The next time either team scored was 56:01 later, when Garrett Skrbich scored into an empty net. Game over, right? Not exactly. Cornell scored with 16 seconds left to keep it interesting, but that would be it.
As for Saturday, he kept checking Twitter for the field hockey score, and Princeton won that one 4-3. By then, Columbia had lost 4-1 to Harvard.
It was the one scenario that would bring Princeton an outright Ivy title and the league's bid to the NCAA tournament. And it worked out perfectly.
Princeton, the Ivy field hockey champ for the 20th time in 21 years, is going to be a tough out come NCAA tournament time.
Then it was time to do PA at football.
The game dragged for nearly 3.5 hours, with 16 TV timeouts and 98 passes. And it wasn't exactly the most artistic game for much of it.
Still, it was exactly what Princeton needed. A win. And so here is where the Tigers are: tied with Yale and Dartmouth - its last two opponents - for second, one game back of Harvard, who play Penn and Yale.
The Tigers need two wins and at least one Harvard loss, but at least they still have a chance. A loss to Penn would have basically ended that hope.
After that, TB watched the second half of men's soccer on the videostream. Princeton was up 3-2 at the half, and that's how it ended.
Dartmouth defeated Columbia, meaning that Princeton and Dartmouth are still tied for first at 4-1-1, with 13 points. Princeton is at Yale (0-5-1); Dartmouth hosts Brown (2-2-2).
Princeton would lose the tiebreaker for the NCAA bid to Dartmouth because of the OT loss on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium earlier this season. But Princeton also is right in the mix for an at-large NCAA bid either way, and a win over Yale means no worse than a share of the Ivy title.
And with that, TB was able to exhale.
These are the kinds of weekends that TB loves. Lots of teams. Lots of games. Lots to do.
This one was a pretty good one.
Monday, November 3, 2014
At Home In Ithaca
When summer lacrosse tournaments or camp games end in ties, a standard tiebreaking procedure is the dreaded "Braveheart."
What's a Braveheart? It's one-on-one, full-field lacrosse, along with goalies. Each team sends out one player to face-off and then play one-on-one until somebody scores. It usually doesn't last too long, since it's a bit difficult to chase someone the length of a lacrosse field once you've given up a step.
TigerBlog thought this would have been a much cooler way to decide who advanced at the Liberty Hockey Invitational first round games Friday at the Prudential Center in Newark, rather than having a conventional three-round shootout.
UConn and Merrimack opened the tournament with a 2-2 tie, and Princeton and Yale concluded the day with their own 2-2 tie. Because of the tournament format, though, someone had to advance to the final, so there was a shootout.
How about a Braveheart instead? Each team sends out the goalie and one skater. They face off and play until someone scores. How much more fun would that be?
Hey, the NHL should adopt this too.
TigerBlog doesn't know much about hockey. He does know that Princeton has scored three goals this year, and they're all by freshmen. That's a good sign.
The Princeton-Yale game was a good one, the first for head coach Ron Fogarty with the Tigers, against the team that won the NCAA championship two years ago. The incredible thing about the game is that the teams meet again twice more in the regular season, and the next meeting was to be one day short of exactly three months later.
What will happen between then and now? A lot. But still, it was an entertaining day of hockey in Newark, and TB got a chance to see the arena, which he had not before.
At the same time, the Princeton women's hockey team was knocking off Cornell, who has dominated Ivy League women's hockey for the last few years. That game was played in Ithaca.
And this weekend, if it was Princeton-Cornell in Ithaca, Princeton won.
The Tigers and Big Red played in Ithaca in six different sports in a 28-hour stretch beginning with that women's hockey game, and Princeton went 6-0 in those six events. Maybe it's because Ithaca is Mollie Marcoux's hometown?
Anyway, if you're keeping track, Princeton defeated Cornell in women's hockey, field hockey, football, women's volleyball, women's soccer and men's soccer between last Friday and Saturday. It's left some of those teams right in the thick of the Ivy championship hunt.
* Field hockey
Princeton is tied with Columbia at 5-1 in the Ivy League. The Tigers host Penn Saturday, while Columbia is at Harvard.
Should only one win, then it would be outright Ivy League champion and the league's NCAA tournament representative. If they both win, then they share the title, but Columbia would be the league's automatic bid by virtue of its win over Princeton. In other words, Princeton needs to beat Penn and have Harvard beat Columbia to get to the NCAA tournament.
Penn and Harvard are both 3-3 in the league.
Things can get a bit murkier if Princeton and Columbia both lose and Cornell defeats Dartmouth, which would mean a three-way tie for the title. In that case, TigerBlog is pretty sure that there would be a random draw for the Ivy automatic bid, since all three would be 1-1 against each other and have a loss to either Penn or Harvard, who would be tied in the standings. TB has been wrong about these things before.
* Men's soccer
Don't look now - or actually look now - but Princeton is tied for first in the Ivy League men's soccer race. Princeton and Dartmouth are both 3-1-1, for 10 points. Harvard and Penn are both next with eight points.
There are two weeks left in the Ivy season, and Princeton hosts Penn and is at Yale. There is also a game Wednesday at American, a team earning votes in the national poll.
Should Princeton win its last two league games, it would be assured of at least a tie for the championship. Because Princeton's loss is to Dartmouth, Princeton would not get the league's automatic bid in a two-way tie, though TB figures the Tigers would be right in the mix for an at-large NCAA bid.
* Women's soccer
This is the final week of Julie Shackford's 20-year career as the women's soccer coach at Princeton. Her team can still get a share of the Ivy League title but cannot get the league's NCAA tournament bid.
Princeton has 10 points, trailing Harvard (13) and Dartmouth (12). A Tiger win over Penn Saturday, coupled with a Harvard loss to Columbia (eight points) and Dartmouth loss or tie in its game with Cornell (three points) gives Princeton a tie for the league championship. The Tigers cannot win a tiebreaker in either a two-way tie with Harvard or three-way tie with Harvard and Dartmouth, and Princeton cannot have a two-way tie with Dartmouth.
* Women's volleyball
There are two weekends and four matches left for each Ivy League women's volleyball team. Princeton is currently 7-3, trailing only Harvard and Yale, who are both 8-2.
The good news for Princeton is that they play both again, this Friday at home against Harvard and then the following Friday at Yale. Princeton is also home with Dartmouth Saturday.
The bad news? Princeton went 0-3 against those three the first time around. Still, the Tigers have a chance, and that's all they could really ask for at this point.
* Football
Princeton defeated Cornell 38-27 Saturday, going to 3-1 in the Ivy League with three games left, including one this Saturday at home at 3:30 against Penn.
Right now, Harvard is 4-0, followed by Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth all at 3-1. Princeton ends it season at Yale and home with Dartmouth.
Harvard knocked off Dartmouth Saturday in a match of the last two Ivy unbeatens. Harvard has also beaten Princeton.
Obviously, the Crimson finish the season against Yale, at home no less. Yale appears to have the best chance to knock off Harvard, who also has Columbia (0-4) and Penn (1-3) to go.
Princeton needs to win out and have someone beat Harvard. If that happens, then Princeton would be co-champion.
What's a Braveheart? It's one-on-one, full-field lacrosse, along with goalies. Each team sends out one player to face-off and then play one-on-one until somebody scores. It usually doesn't last too long, since it's a bit difficult to chase someone the length of a lacrosse field once you've given up a step.
TigerBlog thought this would have been a much cooler way to decide who advanced at the Liberty Hockey Invitational first round games Friday at the Prudential Center in Newark, rather than having a conventional three-round shootout.
UConn and Merrimack opened the tournament with a 2-2 tie, and Princeton and Yale concluded the day with their own 2-2 tie. Because of the tournament format, though, someone had to advance to the final, so there was a shootout.
How about a Braveheart instead? Each team sends out the goalie and one skater. They face off and play until someone scores. How much more fun would that be?
Hey, the NHL should adopt this too.
TigerBlog doesn't know much about hockey. He does know that Princeton has scored three goals this year, and they're all by freshmen. That's a good sign.
The Princeton-Yale game was a good one, the first for head coach Ron Fogarty with the Tigers, against the team that won the NCAA championship two years ago. The incredible thing about the game is that the teams meet again twice more in the regular season, and the next meeting was to be one day short of exactly three months later.
What will happen between then and now? A lot. But still, it was an entertaining day of hockey in Newark, and TB got a chance to see the arena, which he had not before.
At the same time, the Princeton women's hockey team was knocking off Cornell, who has dominated Ivy League women's hockey for the last few years. That game was played in Ithaca.
And this weekend, if it was Princeton-Cornell in Ithaca, Princeton won.
The Tigers and Big Red played in Ithaca in six different sports in a 28-hour stretch beginning with that women's hockey game, and Princeton went 6-0 in those six events. Maybe it's because Ithaca is Mollie Marcoux's hometown?
Anyway, if you're keeping track, Princeton defeated Cornell in women's hockey, field hockey, football, women's volleyball, women's soccer and men's soccer between last Friday and Saturday. It's left some of those teams right in the thick of the Ivy championship hunt.
* Field hockey
Princeton is tied with Columbia at 5-1 in the Ivy League. The Tigers host Penn Saturday, while Columbia is at Harvard.
Should only one win, then it would be outright Ivy League champion and the league's NCAA tournament representative. If they both win, then they share the title, but Columbia would be the league's automatic bid by virtue of its win over Princeton. In other words, Princeton needs to beat Penn and have Harvard beat Columbia to get to the NCAA tournament.
Penn and Harvard are both 3-3 in the league.
Things can get a bit murkier if Princeton and Columbia both lose and Cornell defeats Dartmouth, which would mean a three-way tie for the title. In that case, TigerBlog is pretty sure that there would be a random draw for the Ivy automatic bid, since all three would be 1-1 against each other and have a loss to either Penn or Harvard, who would be tied in the standings. TB has been wrong about these things before.
* Men's soccer
Don't look now - or actually look now - but Princeton is tied for first in the Ivy League men's soccer race. Princeton and Dartmouth are both 3-1-1, for 10 points. Harvard and Penn are both next with eight points.
There are two weeks left in the Ivy season, and Princeton hosts Penn and is at Yale. There is also a game Wednesday at American, a team earning votes in the national poll.
Should Princeton win its last two league games, it would be assured of at least a tie for the championship. Because Princeton's loss is to Dartmouth, Princeton would not get the league's automatic bid in a two-way tie, though TB figures the Tigers would be right in the mix for an at-large NCAA bid.
* Women's soccer
This is the final week of Julie Shackford's 20-year career as the women's soccer coach at Princeton. Her team can still get a share of the Ivy League title but cannot get the league's NCAA tournament bid.
Princeton has 10 points, trailing Harvard (13) and Dartmouth (12). A Tiger win over Penn Saturday, coupled with a Harvard loss to Columbia (eight points) and Dartmouth loss or tie in its game with Cornell (three points) gives Princeton a tie for the league championship. The Tigers cannot win a tiebreaker in either a two-way tie with Harvard or three-way tie with Harvard and Dartmouth, and Princeton cannot have a two-way tie with Dartmouth.
* Women's volleyball
There are two weekends and four matches left for each Ivy League women's volleyball team. Princeton is currently 7-3, trailing only Harvard and Yale, who are both 8-2.
The good news for Princeton is that they play both again, this Friday at home against Harvard and then the following Friday at Yale. Princeton is also home with Dartmouth Saturday.
The bad news? Princeton went 0-3 against those three the first time around. Still, the Tigers have a chance, and that's all they could really ask for at this point.
* Football
Princeton defeated Cornell 38-27 Saturday, going to 3-1 in the Ivy League with three games left, including one this Saturday at home at 3:30 against Penn.
Right now, Harvard is 4-0, followed by Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth all at 3-1. Princeton ends it season at Yale and home with Dartmouth.
Harvard knocked off Dartmouth Saturday in a match of the last two Ivy unbeatens. Harvard has also beaten Princeton.
Obviously, the Crimson finish the season against Yale, at home no less. Yale appears to have the best chance to knock off Harvard, who also has Columbia (0-4) and Penn (1-3) to go.
Princeton needs to win out and have someone beat Harvard. If that happens, then Princeton would be co-champion.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
A Rambling Tuesday Morning
TigerBlog was driving on Nassau Street this morning, near one of the crosswalks.
The law says that drivers must yield to the pedestrians, which in theory is a pretty good idea. On the other hand, what if the pedestrian assumes that the car is stopping but the car doesn't?
TigerBlog would hate for his last words to be "... but TB had the right of way ..."
The problem TB always has when he's driving in that situation is what to do when he can clearly get past the pedestrian before that person enters the roadway. Should he stop anyway?
And what about the person who is standing near the crosswalk but isn't actually crossing the street? Then the driver has to stop for no reason.
There was a young man - a student - on Nassau Street this morning at the walkway, and as he stepped into the road, the car in front of TB's kept going, forcing the student to stop and wait. As the car went by, the kid looked at TB, who had stopped, and extended his arms, palms open and up, as if to say "what's up with that guy?"
TB was going to roll down his window and point out that the car that kept going had New York plates, which might have explained it. Instead, he just kept going.
So there's that.
There's also the issue of the gnats that swarmed Lot 21 yesterday afternoon. They were everywhere.
It's something that happens this time of year. And they were awful yesterday.
TigerBlog could see the swarms before he ever got near his car. The seem to fly in clusters, and so the goal is to avoid walking through the cluster, because then they get all over everything - clothes, skin, hair, everything.
TB had to put stuff in the back of the car, and the gnats weren't too prevalent there. Then he had to get into the car, but there was a cluster on that side. Looking back, he should have gotten in the passenger side and climbed over. Instead, he got in on the driver's side - which proved to be a gnat-infested mistake.
Hopefully today will be better.
So there's that too.
The other thing TB wanted to say was that it was freezing in here yesterday.
The last two mornings saw the temperature (on TB's phone at least) fall to 39 degrees. Whatever the reason, it was frozen in these offices all day yesterday.
It's a sign that winter is coming. Sooner than you think, actually, as college hockey season has actually begun. Not here, but elsewhere.
Here, the women's hockey team begins its season on Oct. 26 at Penn State, which has an incredible new facility and whose men's coach is Guy Gadowsky, the former Princeton coach.
The men open their season on Halloween night at the second Liberty Hockey Invitational, which is at the Prudential Center, home of the New Jersey Devils. This year, the event is a little different, with semifinals between UConn and Merrimack and Princeton and Yale and then a third-place game and championship game the next night.
Just in case you're not good at math, that means that women's hockey season starts in 19 days, while the men play in 24 days.
What else can TigerBlog ramble about today?
Chris Sailer, the women's lacrosse coach, just came in. She was wearing a really simple "Princeton Lacrosse" sweatshirt - gray, no hood, orange letters. It reminded TigerBlog that the first two pieces of Princeton attire he ever owned were a Princeton lacrosse sweatshirt that he paid $20 for outside of Palmer Stadium once and then wore for about 20 years and a black Princeton basketball sweatshirt that former women's coach Joan Kowalik gave him.
Today TB is wearing a black Princeton lacrosse short-sleeve golf-type shirt. It's his oldest current Princeton lacrosse shirt, and it was part of a set with a white one, until he gave the white one to a Costa Rican player during the Tigers' trip there in 2012, in exchange for a Costa Rican jersey.
It was very international soccer-ish.
Speaking of soccer, there is a home game tonight for the men, against Rutgers, at 7 (free admission. FREE FREE FREE).
Princeton versus Rutgers is always a good one in men's soccer. Ironically, Nancy Donigan of the compliance staff just walked in.
Nancy's brother-in-law is Dan Donigan, the head coach at Rutgers. Dan went to Steinert High School in Hamilton; Princeton coach Jim Barlow went to Hightstown. TB assumes they played against each other at some point, and it makes him wonder if that's a rarity in college sports. Do coaches often coach against people they played against in high school?
TigerBlog was at the Princeton-Dartmouth game Saturday, and Princeton lost 2-1 in overtime. It was a harsh ending, but only the first Ivy League game.
In the first weekend of Ivy men's soccer, there were four games, all of which were won by one goal. That suggests something of a balanced league, which suggests that nobody is going to run the table.
Princeton hosts Brown this weekend in another doubleheader with the men at 4 and the women at 7. Both of those games are also FREE FREE FREE.
What else does TB have for his rambling Tuesday morning? Nothing.
In fact, he can't remember what he set out to write about today. And yet this is where he ended up.
That's what happens when you ramble.
The law says that drivers must yield to the pedestrians, which in theory is a pretty good idea. On the other hand, what if the pedestrian assumes that the car is stopping but the car doesn't?
TigerBlog would hate for his last words to be "... but TB had the right of way ..."
The problem TB always has when he's driving in that situation is what to do when he can clearly get past the pedestrian before that person enters the roadway. Should he stop anyway?
And what about the person who is standing near the crosswalk but isn't actually crossing the street? Then the driver has to stop for no reason.
There was a young man - a student - on Nassau Street this morning at the walkway, and as he stepped into the road, the car in front of TB's kept going, forcing the student to stop and wait. As the car went by, the kid looked at TB, who had stopped, and extended his arms, palms open and up, as if to say "what's up with that guy?"
TB was going to roll down his window and point out that the car that kept going had New York plates, which might have explained it. Instead, he just kept going.
So there's that.
There's also the issue of the gnats that swarmed Lot 21 yesterday afternoon. They were everywhere.
It's something that happens this time of year. And they were awful yesterday.
TigerBlog could see the swarms before he ever got near his car. The seem to fly in clusters, and so the goal is to avoid walking through the cluster, because then they get all over everything - clothes, skin, hair, everything.
TB had to put stuff in the back of the car, and the gnats weren't too prevalent there. Then he had to get into the car, but there was a cluster on that side. Looking back, he should have gotten in the passenger side and climbed over. Instead, he got in on the driver's side - which proved to be a gnat-infested mistake.
Hopefully today will be better.
So there's that too.
The other thing TB wanted to say was that it was freezing in here yesterday.
The last two mornings saw the temperature (on TB's phone at least) fall to 39 degrees. Whatever the reason, it was frozen in these offices all day yesterday.
It's a sign that winter is coming. Sooner than you think, actually, as college hockey season has actually begun. Not here, but elsewhere.
Here, the women's hockey team begins its season on Oct. 26 at Penn State, which has an incredible new facility and whose men's coach is Guy Gadowsky, the former Princeton coach.
The men open their season on Halloween night at the second Liberty Hockey Invitational, which is at the Prudential Center, home of the New Jersey Devils. This year, the event is a little different, with semifinals between UConn and Merrimack and Princeton and Yale and then a third-place game and championship game the next night.
Just in case you're not good at math, that means that women's hockey season starts in 19 days, while the men play in 24 days.
What else can TigerBlog ramble about today?
Chris Sailer, the women's lacrosse coach, just came in. She was wearing a really simple "Princeton Lacrosse" sweatshirt - gray, no hood, orange letters. It reminded TigerBlog that the first two pieces of Princeton attire he ever owned were a Princeton lacrosse sweatshirt that he paid $20 for outside of Palmer Stadium once and then wore for about 20 years and a black Princeton basketball sweatshirt that former women's coach Joan Kowalik gave him.
Today TB is wearing a black Princeton lacrosse short-sleeve golf-type shirt. It's his oldest current Princeton lacrosse shirt, and it was part of a set with a white one, until he gave the white one to a Costa Rican player during the Tigers' trip there in 2012, in exchange for a Costa Rican jersey.
It was very international soccer-ish.
Speaking of soccer, there is a home game tonight for the men, against Rutgers, at 7 (free admission. FREE FREE FREE).
Princeton versus Rutgers is always a good one in men's soccer. Ironically, Nancy Donigan of the compliance staff just walked in.
Nancy's brother-in-law is Dan Donigan, the head coach at Rutgers. Dan went to Steinert High School in Hamilton; Princeton coach Jim Barlow went to Hightstown. TB assumes they played against each other at some point, and it makes him wonder if that's a rarity in college sports. Do coaches often coach against people they played against in high school?
TigerBlog was at the Princeton-Dartmouth game Saturday, and Princeton lost 2-1 in overtime. It was a harsh ending, but only the first Ivy League game.
In the first weekend of Ivy men's soccer, there were four games, all of which were won by one goal. That suggests something of a balanced league, which suggests that nobody is going to run the table.
Princeton hosts Brown this weekend in another doubleheader with the men at 4 and the women at 7. Both of those games are also FREE FREE FREE.
What else does TB have for his rambling Tuesday morning? Nothing.
In fact, he can't remember what he set out to write about today. And yet this is where he ended up.
That's what happens when you ramble.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
0-0, And 167-23-10
TigerBlog didn't get in front of the TV until only 25 minutes or so were left in the Brazil-Mexico game yesterday.
As it turned out, TB didn't miss any goals, and there would be none after he started watching either.
Some 0-0 ties are tediously boring. Some are sloppy. Some have a near-miss or two and that's about it.
And then there was the Brazil-Mexico game. This had to be the greatest 0-0 game ever, with great chances, tons of drama, a ton at stake and a epic performance by Mexico's goalkeeper, Guillermo Ochoa to keep it scoreless.
In a World Cup that to date has had some fairly high-scoring games, the Brazil-Mexico game has been the best one so far. And that includes the U.S. and its own fairly dramatic game, a 2-1 win over Ghana.
Belgium's 2-1 comeback win over Algeria was another exciting game, as both goals came late and from players who had subbed in. For that matter, John Brooks' game-winner for the U.S. team was the first in World Cup history for an American sub.
The 2014 World Cup is off to a great start, as almost every game has been entertaining. There can be a tendency to play scared on the biggest stage, afraid to take chances for fear of giving up a tournament-changing goal on a counter.
TB is very interested in seeing how Spain bounces back today against a Chilean team that defeated Australia 3-1 in its opener. Spain, the defending champ and No. 1-ranked team in the world, lost 5-1 to the Netherlands in its first game.
TigerBlog can't imagine what it must be like to play in the World Cup for these players, what a complete thrill it must be. He also wonders what percentage of the players in Brazil for the 2014 event will never play in another World Cup, and for that matter how many players will play in their three games of the Group stage, not advance to the knockout rounds and have that be their only World Cup experience for their lifetimes.
Iowa men's basketball coach Fran McCaffery, way back when he was first starting out as a volunteer assistant coach at Penn, told TigerBlog that there's nothing like playing in the NCAA basketball tournament, even if it's done only once in a career. TB assumes the World Cup is like that, only on an order about 100 times higher.
For those in this country who still resist the World Cup, TigerBlog says that you're really missing the boat. It's a phenomenal event, unlike anything else in the world. It's bigger than the Super Bowl, World Series and NCAA tournament - even the lacrosse one - rolled into one.
TigerBlog thought the 0-0 tie was extraordinary in that both teams were going all-out to score, as opposed to playing it conservatively for the tie, even though the time really helped Mexico, a team that barely got into the field in the first place.
TigerBlog wondered about how common 0-0 ties were in soccer at Princeton.
Princeton's men have played one 0-0 game in each of the last three seasons and last played consecutive 0-0 ties in 2004. Princeton played two in 2013 and last played consecutive 0-0 ties in 2009.
It's apparently much rarer in Princeton hockey than it is in soccer.
The women have played exactly 800 games in program history and have two 0-0 ties, in 2004-05 and 2007-08.
And the men? The Princeton men have played 2,323 games and have had exactly one 0-0 tie, in 2006 against Union.
Between the teams, that's 3,123 games and three 0-0 ties, or one every 1,041 games.
Princeton and incoming Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux introduced Ron Fogarty as the new head coach of men's hockey. Fogarty comes to Princeton from Division III Adrian College in Michigan.
Fogarty spent seven years coaching at Adrian, a school that did not have a hockey program before that. In those seven years, Fogarty took Adrian to a 167-23-10, five NCAA tournaments and one NCAA championship game. That's pretty impressive stuff.
Fogarty also knows his way around the ECAC. He was a player at Colgate, graduating in 1995, and he also coached at his alma mater and Clarkson before moving on to Bowling Green and then ultimately to Adrian.
The trip back to the ECAC lands him at Princeton, a team against which he was 3-4-1 as a player. Princeton hockey has a strong fan base and a rink that is a great place to see a game, and now it has a new head coach.
Princeton went 6-26-0 last year, but 12 of the 26 losses were by one or two goals.
And now the transition to the Ron Fogarty era begins. His track record is extraordinary, with that gaudy 167-23-10 record for a .860 winning percentage that led active Division III coaches.
And that was with a program that didn't exist before he got there.
Now he's at Princeton. It'll be 90-something degrees today and the World Cup is just getting into full swing, leaving it fairly far away from thoughts of the winter. Opening day for Princeton hockey is more than four months away.
When it comes, it'll be with Ron Fogarty on the bench.
Welcome to Princeton. Hopefully it'll be for a long and successful tenure.
As it turned out, TB didn't miss any goals, and there would be none after he started watching either.
Some 0-0 ties are tediously boring. Some are sloppy. Some have a near-miss or two and that's about it.
And then there was the Brazil-Mexico game. This had to be the greatest 0-0 game ever, with great chances, tons of drama, a ton at stake and a epic performance by Mexico's goalkeeper, Guillermo Ochoa to keep it scoreless.
In a World Cup that to date has had some fairly high-scoring games, the Brazil-Mexico game has been the best one so far. And that includes the U.S. and its own fairly dramatic game, a 2-1 win over Ghana.
Belgium's 2-1 comeback win over Algeria was another exciting game, as both goals came late and from players who had subbed in. For that matter, John Brooks' game-winner for the U.S. team was the first in World Cup history for an American sub.
The 2014 World Cup is off to a great start, as almost every game has been entertaining. There can be a tendency to play scared on the biggest stage, afraid to take chances for fear of giving up a tournament-changing goal on a counter.
TB is very interested in seeing how Spain bounces back today against a Chilean team that defeated Australia 3-1 in its opener. Spain, the defending champ and No. 1-ranked team in the world, lost 5-1 to the Netherlands in its first game.
TigerBlog can't imagine what it must be like to play in the World Cup for these players, what a complete thrill it must be. He also wonders what percentage of the players in Brazil for the 2014 event will never play in another World Cup, and for that matter how many players will play in their three games of the Group stage, not advance to the knockout rounds and have that be their only World Cup experience for their lifetimes.
Iowa men's basketball coach Fran McCaffery, way back when he was first starting out as a volunteer assistant coach at Penn, told TigerBlog that there's nothing like playing in the NCAA basketball tournament, even if it's done only once in a career. TB assumes the World Cup is like that, only on an order about 100 times higher.
For those in this country who still resist the World Cup, TigerBlog says that you're really missing the boat. It's a phenomenal event, unlike anything else in the world. It's bigger than the Super Bowl, World Series and NCAA tournament - even the lacrosse one - rolled into one.
TigerBlog thought the 0-0 tie was extraordinary in that both teams were going all-out to score, as opposed to playing it conservatively for the tie, even though the time really helped Mexico, a team that barely got into the field in the first place.
TigerBlog wondered about how common 0-0 ties were in soccer at Princeton.
Princeton's men have played one 0-0 game in each of the last three seasons and last played consecutive 0-0 ties in 2004. Princeton played two in 2013 and last played consecutive 0-0 ties in 2009.
It's apparently much rarer in Princeton hockey than it is in soccer.
The women have played exactly 800 games in program history and have two 0-0 ties, in 2004-05 and 2007-08.
And the men? The Princeton men have played 2,323 games and have had exactly one 0-0 tie, in 2006 against Union.
Between the teams, that's 3,123 games and three 0-0 ties, or one every 1,041 games.
Princeton and incoming Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux introduced Ron Fogarty as the new head coach of men's hockey. Fogarty comes to Princeton from Division III Adrian College in Michigan.
Fogarty spent seven years coaching at Adrian, a school that did not have a hockey program before that. In those seven years, Fogarty took Adrian to a 167-23-10, five NCAA tournaments and one NCAA championship game. That's pretty impressive stuff.
Fogarty also knows his way around the ECAC. He was a player at Colgate, graduating in 1995, and he also coached at his alma mater and Clarkson before moving on to Bowling Green and then ultimately to Adrian.
The trip back to the ECAC lands him at Princeton, a team against which he was 3-4-1 as a player. Princeton hockey has a strong fan base and a rink that is a great place to see a game, and now it has a new head coach.
Princeton went 6-26-0 last year, but 12 of the 26 losses were by one or two goals.
And now the transition to the Ron Fogarty era begins. His track record is extraordinary, with that gaudy 167-23-10 record for a .860 winning percentage that led active Division III coaches.
And that was with a program that didn't exist before he got there.
Now he's at Princeton. It'll be 90-something degrees today and the World Cup is just getting into full swing, leaving it fairly far away from thoughts of the winter. Opening day for Princeton hockey is more than four months away.
When it comes, it'll be with Ron Fogarty on the bench.
Welcome to Princeton. Hopefully it'll be for a long and successful tenure.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Hoping Your News Is Good News
Back when he was a kid, the primary access to daily current events was either through the newspaper or the news on TV.
The preferred newscast in TB's house was the Channel 7 news from New York City, with anchors Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel. Grimsby was a grizzled, somewhat sarcastic announcer, one who ended every newscast with his signature sign-off: "Hoping your news is good news."
It's a rather simple saying, and yet it has a ton of optimism to it. Hoping your news is good news.
It applies to the world of college athletics, certainly. As the late, great, certainly quotable Al McGuire - he was the basketball coach who won an NCAA title at Marquette in 1977 and then went on to a long career in broadcasting - said when asked about the challenges of coaching in college: "just when you think you have everything under control, one of the cheerleaders ends up pregnant."
TigerBlog talks all the time about the perils involved in college athletics. Hey, you put that many strong-willed, competitive, adventurous young people together, and you just hope for the best when it comes time to make decisions.
Anytime TB reads a story about decisions gone bad among college teams, he never (okay, almost never) experiences schadenfreude, which, by the way, is a great word. Nope. He always (okay, usually, depending on the school) thinks "thankfully that wasn't here at Princeton."
Anyone in college athletic administration who thinks it can't happen on his/her campus is fooling him- or herself.
Princeton's athletic administration spends a ton of time stressing to coaches and directly to athletes the importance of making good decisions. It's like parenting. You can do it all you want. When it gets to be key decision time, all you can do is hope it sunk in.
Like Grimsby said, you can hope your news is good news. You also have to be proactive about doing everything you can to make it happen, and then you have to just hope for the best.
And you can be happy when you're on the right side of the news.
Princeton certainly was this week, in the form of hockey player Jack Berger.
It seems that Berger connected with a local six-year-old through one of Princeton's "Skate With the Tiger" events and made such an impression that the boy - Colin Doan - wanted to try playing hockey.
Eventually, his mother sent a video of the boy as he was telling people he wanted to be just like Jack Berger to Princeton men's hockey coach Bob Prier, who forwarded it to Berger. Eventually, Berger showed up at Colin's school as a guest reader, and it just so happened that Berger read to the class of kindergarteners one of TB's favorite authors: Dr. Seuss.
The episode was recounted in the Trentonian earlier this week, and it made for the kind of story that any school craves.
TB was first made aware of it by Daniel Day from the communications office. Dan tweeted it on the main university account and wanted to make sure TB saw it, while also commenting that he loved stories like that. And who wouldn't?
TigerBlog has never met Jack Berger. He's certainly heard a lot about him though.
He strikes TB as one of those too-good-to-be-true-where-do-these-people-come-from types that make working at Princeton pretty special. It's also something that TB never takes for granted.
Way back when when he was in the newspaper business, TB wrote that about Chris Mooney, then a Princeton basketball player and now the head coach at Richmond. It applied then, and it's applied to so many of the athletes TB has seen through the years here.
Berger is no exception.
The captain of the hockey team, Berger is on his way to medical school at some point, after he exhausts his opportunities to play professionally. As the story about Colin shows, he certainly has a big heart. He's a tremendous public speaker, and he has a natural leadership and presence to him.
He's exactly the kind of person you want out there in the public, like at a "Skate With the Tigers" night.
In Jadwin Gym there's often a great deal of talk about how Princeton's athletes are the best ambassadors for the program. Let them out in the community, and everyone responds. TB has seen it any number of times.
The Jack Berger/Colin Doan relationship is a perfect example, but it's hardly the only one.
They don't do it for the publicity. They do it because it's a great thing for college athletes to do, especially at a school like Princeton. They do it because they're role models and they understand that.
They do it because that's just how they are.
Certainly Jack Berger is. When he's involved, the good news appears to follow.
The preferred newscast in TB's house was the Channel 7 news from New York City, with anchors Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel. Grimsby was a grizzled, somewhat sarcastic announcer, one who ended every newscast with his signature sign-off: "Hoping your news is good news."
It's a rather simple saying, and yet it has a ton of optimism to it. Hoping your news is good news.
It applies to the world of college athletics, certainly. As the late, great, certainly quotable Al McGuire - he was the basketball coach who won an NCAA title at Marquette in 1977 and then went on to a long career in broadcasting - said when asked about the challenges of coaching in college: "just when you think you have everything under control, one of the cheerleaders ends up pregnant."
TigerBlog talks all the time about the perils involved in college athletics. Hey, you put that many strong-willed, competitive, adventurous young people together, and you just hope for the best when it comes time to make decisions.
Anytime TB reads a story about decisions gone bad among college teams, he never (okay, almost never) experiences schadenfreude, which, by the way, is a great word. Nope. He always (okay, usually, depending on the school) thinks "thankfully that wasn't here at Princeton."
Anyone in college athletic administration who thinks it can't happen on his/her campus is fooling him- or herself.
Princeton's athletic administration spends a ton of time stressing to coaches and directly to athletes the importance of making good decisions. It's like parenting. You can do it all you want. When it gets to be key decision time, all you can do is hope it sunk in.
Like Grimsby said, you can hope your news is good news. You also have to be proactive about doing everything you can to make it happen, and then you have to just hope for the best.
And you can be happy when you're on the right side of the news.
Princeton certainly was this week, in the form of hockey player Jack Berger.
It seems that Berger connected with a local six-year-old through one of Princeton's "Skate With the Tiger" events and made such an impression that the boy - Colin Doan - wanted to try playing hockey.
Eventually, his mother sent a video of the boy as he was telling people he wanted to be just like Jack Berger to Princeton men's hockey coach Bob Prier, who forwarded it to Berger. Eventually, Berger showed up at Colin's school as a guest reader, and it just so happened that Berger read to the class of kindergarteners one of TB's favorite authors: Dr. Seuss.
The episode was recounted in the Trentonian earlier this week, and it made for the kind of story that any school craves.
TB was first made aware of it by Daniel Day from the communications office. Dan tweeted it on the main university account and wanted to make sure TB saw it, while also commenting that he loved stories like that. And who wouldn't?
TigerBlog has never met Jack Berger. He's certainly heard a lot about him though.
He strikes TB as one of those too-good-to-be-true-where-do-these-people-come-from types that make working at Princeton pretty special. It's also something that TB never takes for granted.
Way back when when he was in the newspaper business, TB wrote that about Chris Mooney, then a Princeton basketball player and now the head coach at Richmond. It applied then, and it's applied to so many of the athletes TB has seen through the years here.
Berger is no exception.
The captain of the hockey team, Berger is on his way to medical school at some point, after he exhausts his opportunities to play professionally. As the story about Colin shows, he certainly has a big heart. He's a tremendous public speaker, and he has a natural leadership and presence to him.
He's exactly the kind of person you want out there in the public, like at a "Skate With the Tigers" night.
In Jadwin Gym there's often a great deal of talk about how Princeton's athletes are the best ambassadors for the program. Let them out in the community, and everyone responds. TB has seen it any number of times.
The Jack Berger/Colin Doan relationship is a perfect example, but it's hardly the only one.
They don't do it for the publicity. They do it because it's a great thing for college athletes to do, especially at a school like Princeton. They do it because they're role models and they understand that.
They do it because that's just how they are.
Certainly Jack Berger is. When he's involved, the good news appears to follow.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Busy Weekend?
Cara Morey, assistant women's hockey coach and wife of sprint football head coach/eternal optimist Sean Morey, wore a bright red sweatshirt and bright red hat to yesterday's monthly department meeting.
They were emblazoned with the word "CANADA" on them.
Given Morey's sport and nationality, it was obvious that she was rooting for the Canadians in the Olympic women's hockey gold medal game, which would be facing off shortly before the end of the meeting.
By now you probably know what happened. Canada won the game and the gold medal 3-2 in overtime, handing the U.S. a brutal setback after the Americans had led 2-0 late in the third period.
Canada broke through to make it a 2-1 game with three minutes left, tied it with just over a minute left after pulling the goalie and then won it in OT. The U.S. team almost wrapped it up when it was 2-1, when a shot at the empty Canadian net trickled gently into the post, about an inch or two away from sealing it. The Canadians then came down and tied it instead.
The U.S. and Canada were destined to be in the gold medal game in women's hockey, just like they were four years ago and just like they will be four more years from now, TB assumes. Because of that, coming home with another silver medal stings a bit, especially after having come so close to finally winning the gold.
It's pretty hard for TigerBlog to work up any kind of animosity for Canada, even more so these days, after he recently saw "Argo" for the first time.
The Olympics foster a great many things, including over-the-top amounts of jingoism. As TB said before the men's hockey quarterfinal game, he knows plenty of Americans he doesn't like but not a single person in the Czech Republic that he doesn't like.
Besides, the American women's team was dotted with players from Harvard and Cornell, which always brings TB back to one of his favorite questions. Do you root for the rest of the league when they get to championship competition beyond the Ivy League?
TB usually roots for Ivy Leaguers in pro sports. The Olympics are sort of an extension of that, but this wasn't one underdog Ivy League-type who made it big.
Add it all up, and TB was mostly rooting for a good game in the women's final, and he got it. He's definitely rooting for the U.S. team in the men's game today though.
If you want to root against current Harvard athletes, then you can come to Jadwin Gym tomorrow night at see the Princeton-Harvard men's basketball game, tip-off for which is at 8.
The Tigers are 2-5 in the Ivy League, so there will be no title this year. There is still a chance, though, to greatly impact who does win the title.
Harvard is 7-1 and tied for first place with Yale, and both teams still need to make the trip to Princeton and Penn. It might not be the kind of big game that Princeton envisioned when it was 11-2 prior to the start of the league season, but it will still be a big game nonetheless.
It's hardly the only Princeton event this weekend, though.
How many events are there? How about 34 between tonight and Sunday. And some of them are huge, such as the Ivy League women's swimming and diving championships and the women's basketball game at Harvard. And the Howe Cup women's squash championships, also to be held in Jadwin.
If you don't feel like leaving the Princeton campus tomorrow, you can be pretty busy. Men's lacrosse opens at 11 a.m. against Hofstra. The men's basketball game wraps it up.
In between is wrestling against Penn (1), men's hockey against Cornell (7) and the squash all day.
It's only going to get busier as the winter/spring overlap gets into full swing for the next few weeks. Of course, this weekend is busy enough.
The lacrosse game will be the first home outdoor event since Nov. 16, when there was home football and men's soccer.
The weather has been brutal all winter, and it's supposed to go back to being brutal next week. But there is a bit of a window this weekend, just in time for Princeton-Hofstra, which will be played apparently on a day that will be sunny with temperatures in the high 40s or low 50s, which will seem like August after what's been going on around here.
Either way, it's a big sign that spring is on the way.
Maybe today's rain and warm temps can melt a lot of the snow, or at least allow some of the grass to peak through in spots. It's enough with seeing snow as far as the eye can see.
They were emblazoned with the word "CANADA" on them.
Given Morey's sport and nationality, it was obvious that she was rooting for the Canadians in the Olympic women's hockey gold medal game, which would be facing off shortly before the end of the meeting.
By now you probably know what happened. Canada won the game and the gold medal 3-2 in overtime, handing the U.S. a brutal setback after the Americans had led 2-0 late in the third period.
Canada broke through to make it a 2-1 game with three minutes left, tied it with just over a minute left after pulling the goalie and then won it in OT. The U.S. team almost wrapped it up when it was 2-1, when a shot at the empty Canadian net trickled gently into the post, about an inch or two away from sealing it. The Canadians then came down and tied it instead.
The U.S. and Canada were destined to be in the gold medal game in women's hockey, just like they were four years ago and just like they will be four more years from now, TB assumes. Because of that, coming home with another silver medal stings a bit, especially after having come so close to finally winning the gold.
It's pretty hard for TigerBlog to work up any kind of animosity for Canada, even more so these days, after he recently saw "Argo" for the first time.
The Olympics foster a great many things, including over-the-top amounts of jingoism. As TB said before the men's hockey quarterfinal game, he knows plenty of Americans he doesn't like but not a single person in the Czech Republic that he doesn't like.
Besides, the American women's team was dotted with players from Harvard and Cornell, which always brings TB back to one of his favorite questions. Do you root for the rest of the league when they get to championship competition beyond the Ivy League?
TB usually roots for Ivy Leaguers in pro sports. The Olympics are sort of an extension of that, but this wasn't one underdog Ivy League-type who made it big.
Add it all up, and TB was mostly rooting for a good game in the women's final, and he got it. He's definitely rooting for the U.S. team in the men's game today though.
If you want to root against current Harvard athletes, then you can come to Jadwin Gym tomorrow night at see the Princeton-Harvard men's basketball game, tip-off for which is at 8.
The Tigers are 2-5 in the Ivy League, so there will be no title this year. There is still a chance, though, to greatly impact who does win the title.
Harvard is 7-1 and tied for first place with Yale, and both teams still need to make the trip to Princeton and Penn. It might not be the kind of big game that Princeton envisioned when it was 11-2 prior to the start of the league season, but it will still be a big game nonetheless.
It's hardly the only Princeton event this weekend, though.
How many events are there? How about 34 between tonight and Sunday. And some of them are huge, such as the Ivy League women's swimming and diving championships and the women's basketball game at Harvard. And the Howe Cup women's squash championships, also to be held in Jadwin.
If you don't feel like leaving the Princeton campus tomorrow, you can be pretty busy. Men's lacrosse opens at 11 a.m. against Hofstra. The men's basketball game wraps it up.
In between is wrestling against Penn (1), men's hockey against Cornell (7) and the squash all day.
It's only going to get busier as the winter/spring overlap gets into full swing for the next few weeks. Of course, this weekend is busy enough.
The lacrosse game will be the first home outdoor event since Nov. 16, when there was home football and men's soccer.
The weather has been brutal all winter, and it's supposed to go back to being brutal next week. But there is a bit of a window this weekend, just in time for Princeton-Hofstra, which will be played apparently on a day that will be sunny with temperatures in the high 40s or low 50s, which will seem like August after what's been going on around here.
Either way, it's a big sign that spring is on the way.
Maybe today's rain and warm temps can melt a lot of the snow, or at least allow some of the grass to peak through in spots. It's enough with seeing snow as far as the eye can see.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
The Weird Week
Greg Maddux is TigerBlog's favorite baseball player of all time. Well, either Maddux or John Smoltz.
Back when MotherBlog was living in Atlanta, TB became a big fan of the Braves. Actually, this predated when Maddux signed with the team, which was back in 1993.
TB remembers a night in 1989 when he and MotherBlog went to see the Braves play the Dodgers at Fulton County Stadium. He remembers that the Braves lost 7-0 and that nobody was in the building.
When TB checked out the box score, he found out that the game was on June 6, 1989, and that "Martinez" had pitched a complete game shutout for the Dodgers. It wasn't even Pedro. It was Ramon.
Anyway, TB got into the Braves because of MotherBlog, and because TBS showed all the Braves games back then.
Atlanta went 63-97 in 1989 and 65-97 in 1990, finishing sixth in the division each year. The team hadn't had a winning record since 1982, and in 1988 had actually lost 106 games.
And then, in 1991, everything fell into place, as the Braves began a remarkable run that saw them reach the World Series in 1991 and 1992 and then win it in 1995. TB is still bothered by the 1993 NLCS loss to the Phillies and even more by the 1996 World Series, when the Braves lost to the Yankees after being up 2-0 in the series and 6-0 in Game 4. Oh, and that game that Eric Gregg umpired against the Marlins in the NLCS in 1997.
Maddux pitched for the Braves from 1993-2003, winning three Cy Young Awards in the process. In 1997, a year he didn't win the Cy Young Award, he went 19-4 with a 2.20 ERA and 177 strikeouts and 20 walks in 232 innings. Who did win the Cy Young that year? Pedro Martinez, who was 17-8 but with a 1.90 ERA and 305 strikeouts in 241 innings.
Maddux had all kinds of years like that, with almost no walks and low ERAs. He finished his career 355-227 with a 3.16 ERA and 3,371 strikeouts and 999 walks in 5,008 innings. He did all this without ever coming close 90 mph on a radar gun - but with a ball that could start out six inches off the plate and tail back over at the last second.
He was elected to the Hall of Fame yesterday. Shockingly, 16 votes chose not to include him on their ballots, including one who refuses to vote for anyone at all who played during the steroid era.
TB can't really blame people who won't vote for the McGwires and Sosas and Bonds. Hey, they clearly cheated, even if their non-steroid careers would have been good enough to get in.
But Maddux? What did he do?
The announcement of the baseball Hall of Fame class of 2014 came yesterday. It includes another Braves pitcher, Tom Glavine, who is also wildly deserving. Frank Thomas was elected as well, and while TB agrees that he's a Hall of Fame player, he's not one of the all-time greatest hitters.
TB has never liked the whole "he's a Hall of Famer but not a first ballot one." In fact, TB would prefer players to be on the ballot just once - either you are or you aren't.
As for the future, will anyone be unanimous? Mariano Rivera (whom TB considers to be the most overrated baseball player ever, but that's more about the nature of his position)? Derek Jeter? Anyone?
Smoltz is on the ballot next year, TB believes. He won't be unanimous, but he should be in on the first try. Aside from his regular season numbers (213 wins, 154 saves, 3,084 strikeouts), he was also 15-4 in the postseason.
The baseball Hall of Fame news followed the BCS championship game and preceded the NFL divisional playoff round in a huge sports week.
As far as Princeton is concerned, it's more of a weird week than a huge week, though there are some huge events.
This is always a weird week for Princeton, in that the holidays are over but first semester exams are coming. It means that while the rest of the college sports world gears up again after a slow time in late December and then has a huge month of January, Princeton has games this week and then is off for two weeks for exams.
The biggest events this weekend are on the road, though the men's hockey team is home against RPI and Union after its trip to Florida and Vancouver.
As for the big events on the road, he squash teams are at Harvard and Dartmouth. The women's match against Harvard, particularly, should decide the Ivy League championship, even this early in the league season. At the very least, the winner will be in major control on the way to at least a share of the title.
Then there is Saturday at the Palestra, where a basketball doubleheader begins with the Princeton-Penn women at 3 and continues with the men at 6. No Ivy men's or women's teams have played a league game yet.
The women's game features the Ivy League team with the best record to this point, and it's Penn, not Princeton. The Quakers are 8-2 right now and actually have won eight straight after opening with losses to St. Francis (N.Y.) and Notre Dame.
One sign that Penn is an improved team is the fact that Alyssa Baron, already a two-time Ivy scoring champion, is averaging a career-low 13.7 per game - and yet her team is 8-2. In other words, she's no longer a one woman show.
Princeton, at 9-5, is playing very well right now. The league season begins with two huge tests, at Penn Saturday and then home with 9-4 Harvard in the next game, though it is 20 days later.
Princeton has won the last four Ivy titles.
As for the men's game, Penn may be 2-10 while Princeton is 11-2, but they're both 0-0 in the Ivy League. It's a great opportunity for a struggling team to wipe the slate clean.
Also, remember that Penn was picked second in the preseason poll while Princeton was picked fourth. Yes, it's been a rough road for the Quakers through November and December, but it won't be easy for Princeton, who can't just show up and win.
And then it'll be off for two weeks, so any momentum that is gained this weekend won't last.
Still, these are huge games for both teams. Especially since both play Harvard in their next league game.
Back when MotherBlog was living in Atlanta, TB became a big fan of the Braves. Actually, this predated when Maddux signed with the team, which was back in 1993.
TB remembers a night in 1989 when he and MotherBlog went to see the Braves play the Dodgers at Fulton County Stadium. He remembers that the Braves lost 7-0 and that nobody was in the building.
When TB checked out the box score, he found out that the game was on June 6, 1989, and that "Martinez" had pitched a complete game shutout for the Dodgers. It wasn't even Pedro. It was Ramon.
Anyway, TB got into the Braves because of MotherBlog, and because TBS showed all the Braves games back then.
Atlanta went 63-97 in 1989 and 65-97 in 1990, finishing sixth in the division each year. The team hadn't had a winning record since 1982, and in 1988 had actually lost 106 games.
And then, in 1991, everything fell into place, as the Braves began a remarkable run that saw them reach the World Series in 1991 and 1992 and then win it in 1995. TB is still bothered by the 1993 NLCS loss to the Phillies and even more by the 1996 World Series, when the Braves lost to the Yankees after being up 2-0 in the series and 6-0 in Game 4. Oh, and that game that Eric Gregg umpired against the Marlins in the NLCS in 1997.
Maddux pitched for the Braves from 1993-2003, winning three Cy Young Awards in the process. In 1997, a year he didn't win the Cy Young Award, he went 19-4 with a 2.20 ERA and 177 strikeouts and 20 walks in 232 innings. Who did win the Cy Young that year? Pedro Martinez, who was 17-8 but with a 1.90 ERA and 305 strikeouts in 241 innings.
Maddux had all kinds of years like that, with almost no walks and low ERAs. He finished his career 355-227 with a 3.16 ERA and 3,371 strikeouts and 999 walks in 5,008 innings. He did all this without ever coming close 90 mph on a radar gun - but with a ball that could start out six inches off the plate and tail back over at the last second.
He was elected to the Hall of Fame yesterday. Shockingly, 16 votes chose not to include him on their ballots, including one who refuses to vote for anyone at all who played during the steroid era.
TB can't really blame people who won't vote for the McGwires and Sosas and Bonds. Hey, they clearly cheated, even if their non-steroid careers would have been good enough to get in.
But Maddux? What did he do?
The announcement of the baseball Hall of Fame class of 2014 came yesterday. It includes another Braves pitcher, Tom Glavine, who is also wildly deserving. Frank Thomas was elected as well, and while TB agrees that he's a Hall of Fame player, he's not one of the all-time greatest hitters.
TB has never liked the whole "he's a Hall of Famer but not a first ballot one." In fact, TB would prefer players to be on the ballot just once - either you are or you aren't.
As for the future, will anyone be unanimous? Mariano Rivera (whom TB considers to be the most overrated baseball player ever, but that's more about the nature of his position)? Derek Jeter? Anyone?
Smoltz is on the ballot next year, TB believes. He won't be unanimous, but he should be in on the first try. Aside from his regular season numbers (213 wins, 154 saves, 3,084 strikeouts), he was also 15-4 in the postseason.
The baseball Hall of Fame news followed the BCS championship game and preceded the NFL divisional playoff round in a huge sports week.
As far as Princeton is concerned, it's more of a weird week than a huge week, though there are some huge events.
This is always a weird week for Princeton, in that the holidays are over but first semester exams are coming. It means that while the rest of the college sports world gears up again after a slow time in late December and then has a huge month of January, Princeton has games this week and then is off for two weeks for exams.
The biggest events this weekend are on the road, though the men's hockey team is home against RPI and Union after its trip to Florida and Vancouver.
As for the big events on the road, he squash teams are at Harvard and Dartmouth. The women's match against Harvard, particularly, should decide the Ivy League championship, even this early in the league season. At the very least, the winner will be in major control on the way to at least a share of the title.
Then there is Saturday at the Palestra, where a basketball doubleheader begins with the Princeton-Penn women at 3 and continues with the men at 6. No Ivy men's or women's teams have played a league game yet.
The women's game features the Ivy League team with the best record to this point, and it's Penn, not Princeton. The Quakers are 8-2 right now and actually have won eight straight after opening with losses to St. Francis (N.Y.) and Notre Dame.
One sign that Penn is an improved team is the fact that Alyssa Baron, already a two-time Ivy scoring champion, is averaging a career-low 13.7 per game - and yet her team is 8-2. In other words, she's no longer a one woman show.
Princeton, at 9-5, is playing very well right now. The league season begins with two huge tests, at Penn Saturday and then home with 9-4 Harvard in the next game, though it is 20 days later.
Princeton has won the last four Ivy titles.
As for the men's game, Penn may be 2-10 while Princeton is 11-2, but they're both 0-0 in the Ivy League. It's a great opportunity for a struggling team to wipe the slate clean.
Also, remember that Penn was picked second in the preseason poll while Princeton was picked fourth. Yes, it's been a rough road for the Quakers through November and December, but it won't be easy for Princeton, who can't just show up and win.
And then it'll be off for two weeks, so any momentum that is gained this weekend won't last.
Still, these are huge games for both teams. Especially since both play Harvard in their next league game.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Get Packing
TigerBlog doesn't remember all the details of his parents' three-week trip Down Under way, way back when.
He does remember a few things. Like one of the stops, in addition to Australia and New Zealand, was Tahiti, since for weeks before they left, FatherBlog kept singing "Tahiti sounds the greatest, of all the crazy places that you've been."
In case you didn't get the reference, that's a line from the title song in "Mame." Is it any wonder TigerBlog grew up to be so cool?
TB also remembers that it was in the summer, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. At some place along their route, it was the dead of winter, while in other spots it was winter but summer year-round, probably Tahiti.
Anyway, what TB's parents did was take their winter stuff and ship their summer stuff to the hotel where they would be when it came to be summer weather. Then they shipped the winter stuff home. Ingenious, no?
TB thought about that when he saw that the Princeton men's hockey team was going to spend eight days split between Fort Myers, Florida, and Vancouver, British Columbia.
The high temperatures in Fort Myers have been in the 80s. The low temperatures in Vanoucover will be in the low 20s, with highs in the high 30s or low 40s.
So what do you pack? Summer stuff and winter stuff, all for less than the 50 pounds a checked bag can be? That's not easy to pull off.
The Tigers go from the Florida College Hockey Classic to the Great Northwest Showcase, with a little New Year's Eve and New Year's Day fun thrown into the mix.
Princeton lost to Maine and New Hampshire in Florida and will play Canadian universities Simon Fraser and the University of British Columbia Friday night and Saturday night. Princeton is struggling this season, but there is plenty of time for a second-half run, especially with such key players as Andrew Calof now healthy.
And besides, the trip to Canada is were such a seasonal turnarounds can begin.
Another Princeton team that played in a tournament this past weekend was the women's basketball team, which had a very successful run at the Cavalier Classic at the University of Virginia.
The Tigers reached the championship game, falling to the host team 69-57 as UVa won its own tournament for the 10th straight time.
To get to the game against Virginia, Princeton blew out Alabama 79-59 Friday for its first win ever against an SEC opponent.
It's not just that Princeton beat Alabama. It's that Princeton beat Alabama by 20 points.
The Tigers are rounding into top form just when necessary, with the start of the Ivy season coming up. Princeton will spend the next two Saturdays in Philadelphia, with a game this weekend at Drexel and then the Ivy opener Jan. 11 at Penn.
After that is a 20-day break for first semester exams, followed by a showdown at home against Harvard.
The loss to Virginia ended a five-game winning streak for Princeton, which included four blowout wins over Navy, Binghamton, Illinois State and Alabama and one overtime win against a very good Delaware team. The loss to Virginia, a perennial ACC power, was very competitive.
Blake Dietrick had 36 points in the two games, and she was joined by Kristen Helmstetter (26 points, 10 rebounds, 14 assists in the two games) on the all-tournament team.
As an aside, every time TB hears about all-tournament teams, he thinks about what Pete Carril once said, when told that one of his players in an in-season tournament had made the all-tournament team: "Yeah? So did the guy he was guarding."
He does remember a few things. Like one of the stops, in addition to Australia and New Zealand, was Tahiti, since for weeks before they left, FatherBlog kept singing "Tahiti sounds the greatest, of all the crazy places that you've been."
In case you didn't get the reference, that's a line from the title song in "Mame." Is it any wonder TigerBlog grew up to be so cool?
TB also remembers that it was in the summer, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. At some place along their route, it was the dead of winter, while in other spots it was winter but summer year-round, probably Tahiti.
Anyway, what TB's parents did was take their winter stuff and ship their summer stuff to the hotel where they would be when it came to be summer weather. Then they shipped the winter stuff home. Ingenious, no?
TB thought about that when he saw that the Princeton men's hockey team was going to spend eight days split between Fort Myers, Florida, and Vancouver, British Columbia.
The high temperatures in Fort Myers have been in the 80s. The low temperatures in Vanoucover will be in the low 20s, with highs in the high 30s or low 40s.
So what do you pack? Summer stuff and winter stuff, all for less than the 50 pounds a checked bag can be? That's not easy to pull off.
The Tigers go from the Florida College Hockey Classic to the Great Northwest Showcase, with a little New Year's Eve and New Year's Day fun thrown into the mix.
Princeton lost to Maine and New Hampshire in Florida and will play Canadian universities Simon Fraser and the University of British Columbia Friday night and Saturday night. Princeton is struggling this season, but there is plenty of time for a second-half run, especially with such key players as Andrew Calof now healthy.
And besides, the trip to Canada is were such a seasonal turnarounds can begin.
Another Princeton team that played in a tournament this past weekend was the women's basketball team, which had a very successful run at the Cavalier Classic at the University of Virginia.
The Tigers reached the championship game, falling to the host team 69-57 as UVa won its own tournament for the 10th straight time.
To get to the game against Virginia, Princeton blew out Alabama 79-59 Friday for its first win ever against an SEC opponent.
It's not just that Princeton beat Alabama. It's that Princeton beat Alabama by 20 points.
The Tigers are rounding into top form just when necessary, with the start of the Ivy season coming up. Princeton will spend the next two Saturdays in Philadelphia, with a game this weekend at Drexel and then the Ivy opener Jan. 11 at Penn.
After that is a 20-day break for first semester exams, followed by a showdown at home against Harvard.
The loss to Virginia ended a five-game winning streak for Princeton, which included four blowout wins over Navy, Binghamton, Illinois State and Alabama and one overtime win against a very good Delaware team. The loss to Virginia, a perennial ACC power, was very competitive.
Blake Dietrick had 36 points in the two games, and she was joined by Kristen Helmstetter (26 points, 10 rebounds, 14 assists in the two games) on the all-tournament team.
As an aside, every time TB hears about all-tournament teams, he thinks about what Pete Carril once said, when told that one of his players in an in-season tournament had made the all-tournament team: "Yeah? So did the guy he was guarding."
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Overflowing
TigerBlog heard a bad sound coming from the basement the other day.
The washing machine was on, and from upstairs TB could hear a sloshing sound that wasn't quite right. He thought it might be the normal cycle, only to figure out relatively quickly that he'd never heard it before in all the loads he'd done.
When he went downstairs, he immediately saw that there was an issue. The water hadn't stopped filling into the machine even when it went past the point it should have, and it eventually overflowed and starting flooding the basement.
Fortunately, TB figured it out when he did, before it got to be too bad down there.
The moral of the story is that you never want to turn the washing machine on and then leave, figuring you can put the clothes in the dryer when you get back. Had TB done that, the time with the wet vac would have been far longer. In fact, the basement would have been replaced by an indoor swimming pool - inadvertently.
TB counts doing the laundry as one of his best skills. He's certainly one of the great folders of all time.
Doing the laundry is a bit of a pain, and it's one of those chores that never seems to be completely finished. Really, by definition, it can't be, because there's always something that can be washed - towels, sheets, the clothes currently being worn. Everything can't be clean all at once.
Folding clothes for babies is a nightmare. Everything is so small that one load can have about 10,000 items in it. Well, not really, but you get the point.
TB's kids have reached the point where they do their own laundry, which is very helpful. As for TB, his own laundry needs are on hold, at least until this afternoon, when the washing machine is being fixed.
Or at least he hopes it's being fixed. What he wants to hear is that some hose came loose somewhere. What he doesn't want to hear is this: "It's an old machine and isn't worth fixing so go buy a new one."
Less than a week before Christmas isn't the right time to have to purchase major appliances.
TB loves the car commercials where the husband gives the wife the small box and then watches as she opens it, finds a set of keys and gives him a quizzical look. He then points to the driveway, where the brand-new car with the big ribbon is sitting (always in the snow; people in Florida don't do this?).
The implication is that he's just bought his wife a very expensive gift. TB's take is that they needed a new car anyway and so he's really cheap and getting away without buying a real gift.
From TigerBlog's view out of his office door, it's hard to miss the fact that Christmas is around the corner.
Softball coach Lisa Sweeney and her assistant Jennifer Lapicki went around putting wrapping paper on several doors on the Jadwin balcony, including TB's. Beyond the door is the railing, which for the first time in TB's memory has Christmas lights on it.
The railing stretches the length of the balcony, from Courtney Banghart's office on one end to the mailroom on the other. There is one strand of lights that is wrapped around it, with colored lights, not the white ones. TB prefers the colored ones.
TB assumed it was the work of the softball coaches, but it turns out it was actually done by Gary Walters, who has never done that before.
Christmas and New Year's Day are both on a Wednesday this year. It makes the work weeks a bit fuzzy, with the big holidays and Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. TB assumes he won't see too many people around here for the next two weeks.
It's not all that crowded right now, what with people out shopping (or getting their washing machines fixed).
There is only 10 athletic events remaining for Princeton Athletics in the calendar year, and of those 10, almost all - nine - are on the road. There are two men's basketball games in Las Vegas this weekend, two women's basketball games next weekend at UVa, two men's hockey games in Florida after Christmas and three days of wrestling that weekend as well.
The only remaining 2013 home event is a New Year's Eve afternoon men's basketball game at noon against Kent State. TB is interested in seeing what attendance for that game will be.
And so, before TB runs out of here to get the washing machine taken care of, he leaves you with this question:
The basketball game against Kent State is the last home athletic event in 2013. How many home athletic events did Princeton have in 2013 across all sports?
This takes into account all home events that counted, so exhibition games and scrimmages are not on the list. Also, if the men's heavyweight rowing team had a home event with three schools competing across five different boats, that all counts as one.
Brad Pottieger, Princeton's Manager of Intercollegiate Programming, very nicely took the time to figure this out for TB this morning.
Give up? TB's guess was 252, and he wasn't that far off.
The answer is 226.
As in 225 down, one to go, 12 days from now.
And with that, it's time to find out if TB will have a new washing machine by then. He hopes not.
The washing machine was on, and from upstairs TB could hear a sloshing sound that wasn't quite right. He thought it might be the normal cycle, only to figure out relatively quickly that he'd never heard it before in all the loads he'd done.
When he went downstairs, he immediately saw that there was an issue. The water hadn't stopped filling into the machine even when it went past the point it should have, and it eventually overflowed and starting flooding the basement.
Fortunately, TB figured it out when he did, before it got to be too bad down there.
The moral of the story is that you never want to turn the washing machine on and then leave, figuring you can put the clothes in the dryer when you get back. Had TB done that, the time with the wet vac would have been far longer. In fact, the basement would have been replaced by an indoor swimming pool - inadvertently.
TB counts doing the laundry as one of his best skills. He's certainly one of the great folders of all time.
Doing the laundry is a bit of a pain, and it's one of those chores that never seems to be completely finished. Really, by definition, it can't be, because there's always something that can be washed - towels, sheets, the clothes currently being worn. Everything can't be clean all at once.
Folding clothes for babies is a nightmare. Everything is so small that one load can have about 10,000 items in it. Well, not really, but you get the point.
TB's kids have reached the point where they do their own laundry, which is very helpful. As for TB, his own laundry needs are on hold, at least until this afternoon, when the washing machine is being fixed.
Or at least he hopes it's being fixed. What he wants to hear is that some hose came loose somewhere. What he doesn't want to hear is this: "It's an old machine and isn't worth fixing so go buy a new one."
Less than a week before Christmas isn't the right time to have to purchase major appliances.
TB loves the car commercials where the husband gives the wife the small box and then watches as she opens it, finds a set of keys and gives him a quizzical look. He then points to the driveway, where the brand-new car with the big ribbon is sitting (always in the snow; people in Florida don't do this?).
The implication is that he's just bought his wife a very expensive gift. TB's take is that they needed a new car anyway and so he's really cheap and getting away without buying a real gift.
From TigerBlog's view out of his office door, it's hard to miss the fact that Christmas is around the corner.
Softball coach Lisa Sweeney and her assistant Jennifer Lapicki went around putting wrapping paper on several doors on the Jadwin balcony, including TB's. Beyond the door is the railing, which for the first time in TB's memory has Christmas lights on it.
The railing stretches the length of the balcony, from Courtney Banghart's office on one end to the mailroom on the other. There is one strand of lights that is wrapped around it, with colored lights, not the white ones. TB prefers the colored ones.
TB assumed it was the work of the softball coaches, but it turns out it was actually done by Gary Walters, who has never done that before.
Christmas and New Year's Day are both on a Wednesday this year. It makes the work weeks a bit fuzzy, with the big holidays and Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. TB assumes he won't see too many people around here for the next two weeks.
It's not all that crowded right now, what with people out shopping (or getting their washing machines fixed).
There is only 10 athletic events remaining for Princeton Athletics in the calendar year, and of those 10, almost all - nine - are on the road. There are two men's basketball games in Las Vegas this weekend, two women's basketball games next weekend at UVa, two men's hockey games in Florida after Christmas and three days of wrestling that weekend as well.
The only remaining 2013 home event is a New Year's Eve afternoon men's basketball game at noon against Kent State. TB is interested in seeing what attendance for that game will be.
And so, before TB runs out of here to get the washing machine taken care of, he leaves you with this question:
The basketball game against Kent State is the last home athletic event in 2013. How many home athletic events did Princeton have in 2013 across all sports?
This takes into account all home events that counted, so exhibition games and scrimmages are not on the list. Also, if the men's heavyweight rowing team had a home event with three schools competing across five different boats, that all counts as one.
Brad Pottieger, Princeton's Manager of Intercollegiate Programming, very nicely took the time to figure this out for TB this morning.
Give up? TB's guess was 252, and he wasn't that far off.
The answer is 226.
As in 225 down, one to go, 12 days from now.
And with that, it's time to find out if TB will have a new washing machine by then. He hopes not.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Thanksgivings, Home And Away
Lisa Sweeney is the Princeton softball coach. Brendan Van Ackeren is Princeton's assistant manager of business and ticket operations.
They're engaged, which TigerBlog presumes they're both okay with. They're both nice young people. TB wishes them the best.
Hey, if it can survive what happened last night during the Princeton-George Mason men's basketball game, then they should be good for decades.
Sweeney and Van Ackeren participated in one of the in-game contests, a free-throw shooting game. Thirty seconds. Whoever makes the most wins.
At one end was Brendan, struggling to find a rhythm. At the other end was Lisa, draining so many in a row that TB lost count. The final score was five or six to one.
Brendan took it well. He had no choice.
As an aside, foul shooting contests are becoming more than just in-game promotions, with the new rules in college basketball. During Princeton's 71-66 win over George Mason, the teams shot a combined 48 foul shots as the officials called 44 fouls in the game. Princeton's games last year averaged slightly below 35 free throws and 32 called fouls per game.
Anyway, the Sweeney/Van Ackeren foul shots were a nice part of the evening. It was a family moment, as a family time of year begins.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, as everyone knows. Hanukkah starts at sundown tonight.
Christmas is looming, beyond that the New Year. December is a time for holiday shopping, holiday parties, holiday cards, holiday fun. In other words, holidays.
For some, the Thanksgiving holiday will take them far away.
Both hockey teams are headed to the Midwest, for instance.
The women, off their 1-1 tie with No. 8 Quinnipiac Tuesday night, will play Saturday and Sunday at Minnesota, which just happens to be the No. 1 team in the country.
The men will be at Michigan State for two games, Friday night and Sunday afternoon.
The women's basketball team leaves tomorrow for Oregon, where it will take on Portland State Saturday and Oregon Sunday.
TigerBlog learned something interesting yesterday from assistant women's basketball coach Milena Flores, who told him who Oregon's women's basketball coach is. And who would that be? None other than Paul Westhead.
Yes, that Paul Westhead. The one who coached, among others, the Lakers and Loyola Marymount during the Hank Gathers-Bo Kimble years.
The one who likes his teams to run. And shoot fast. And score a lot of points.
Oregon's women lead Division I in scoring offense at 99.5 points per game. That's a ton of points.
Princeton has never had a game in which its women's basketball team has reached 100. The Tigers have come close, hitting 99 last year at Yale and 98 last year at home against Columbia.
Westhead will have his team push the tempo. Princeton is a good offensive team that can also run. It should be a rather fascinating game.
When you're traveling on Thanksgiving and playing a bunch of games, you tailor the holiday to your schedule, which is what all three Princeton teams will be doing. There are trips to houses of players who live close to where the teams are playing, and big turkey dinners moved up or back or day or so.
For most of the people at Princeton - and everywhere else - Thanksgiving will be just fine on Thursday.
It'll be a time for eating and overeating and then eating again. There will be football to watch. Relatives to reconnect with.
Thanksgiving is TigerBlog's favorite holiday. It's fairly secular, so you can say "Happy Thanksgiving" without feeling like you're going to offend someone, like you would if you said, oh, "Merry Christmas."
It has great movies (Rocky and Adrian had their first date on Thanksgiving, as did John Candy and Steve Martin) and TV shows (every sitcom worth anything has had a Thanksgiving episode) associated with it. Most people love turkey. It's a day when people make time for their family, regardless of what else is going on in their world.
You don't have to go out and get presents for people, so there's none of the stress that precedes Christmas. It's very relaxing - except for whoever has to do all the cooking.
And yes, there is the hassle of traveling, especially when the Wednesday before it is going to be such a nightmarish weather day, with rain and high winds.
So safe travels everyone.
Whether you're going to be on the road to see family or to get where you need to be for your Thanksgiving weekend Princeton athletic events, be careful and make sure you get there in one piece.
A year had 365 (or 366) days in it. Some stand out more than the rest.
Thanksgiving is definitely one of them.
And while you're eating and watching the games, make sure you take step back and think about what you're truly thankful for in your life.
And then tell those people who are part of that.
Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.
They're engaged, which TigerBlog presumes they're both okay with. They're both nice young people. TB wishes them the best.
Hey, if it can survive what happened last night during the Princeton-George Mason men's basketball game, then they should be good for decades.
Sweeney and Van Ackeren participated in one of the in-game contests, a free-throw shooting game. Thirty seconds. Whoever makes the most wins.
At one end was Brendan, struggling to find a rhythm. At the other end was Lisa, draining so many in a row that TB lost count. The final score was five or six to one.
Brendan took it well. He had no choice.
As an aside, foul shooting contests are becoming more than just in-game promotions, with the new rules in college basketball. During Princeton's 71-66 win over George Mason, the teams shot a combined 48 foul shots as the officials called 44 fouls in the game. Princeton's games last year averaged slightly below 35 free throws and 32 called fouls per game.
Anyway, the Sweeney/Van Ackeren foul shots were a nice part of the evening. It was a family moment, as a family time of year begins.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, as everyone knows. Hanukkah starts at sundown tonight.
Christmas is looming, beyond that the New Year. December is a time for holiday shopping, holiday parties, holiday cards, holiday fun. In other words, holidays.
For some, the Thanksgiving holiday will take them far away.
Both hockey teams are headed to the Midwest, for instance.
The women, off their 1-1 tie with No. 8 Quinnipiac Tuesday night, will play Saturday and Sunday at Minnesota, which just happens to be the No. 1 team in the country.
The men will be at Michigan State for two games, Friday night and Sunday afternoon.
The women's basketball team leaves tomorrow for Oregon, where it will take on Portland State Saturday and Oregon Sunday.
TigerBlog learned something interesting yesterday from assistant women's basketball coach Milena Flores, who told him who Oregon's women's basketball coach is. And who would that be? None other than Paul Westhead.
Yes, that Paul Westhead. The one who coached, among others, the Lakers and Loyola Marymount during the Hank Gathers-Bo Kimble years.
The one who likes his teams to run. And shoot fast. And score a lot of points.
Oregon's women lead Division I in scoring offense at 99.5 points per game. That's a ton of points.
Princeton has never had a game in which its women's basketball team has reached 100. The Tigers have come close, hitting 99 last year at Yale and 98 last year at home against Columbia.
Westhead will have his team push the tempo. Princeton is a good offensive team that can also run. It should be a rather fascinating game.
When you're traveling on Thanksgiving and playing a bunch of games, you tailor the holiday to your schedule, which is what all three Princeton teams will be doing. There are trips to houses of players who live close to where the teams are playing, and big turkey dinners moved up or back or day or so.
For most of the people at Princeton - and everywhere else - Thanksgiving will be just fine on Thursday.
It'll be a time for eating and overeating and then eating again. There will be football to watch. Relatives to reconnect with.
Thanksgiving is TigerBlog's favorite holiday. It's fairly secular, so you can say "Happy Thanksgiving" without feeling like you're going to offend someone, like you would if you said, oh, "Merry Christmas."
It has great movies (Rocky and Adrian had their first date on Thanksgiving, as did John Candy and Steve Martin) and TV shows (every sitcom worth anything has had a Thanksgiving episode) associated with it. Most people love turkey. It's a day when people make time for their family, regardless of what else is going on in their world.
You don't have to go out and get presents for people, so there's none of the stress that precedes Christmas. It's very relaxing - except for whoever has to do all the cooking.
And yes, there is the hassle of traveling, especially when the Wednesday before it is going to be such a nightmarish weather day, with rain and high winds.
So safe travels everyone.
Whether you're going to be on the road to see family or to get where you need to be for your Thanksgiving weekend Princeton athletic events, be careful and make sure you get there in one piece.
A year had 365 (or 366) days in it. Some stand out more than the rest.
Thanksgiving is definitely one of them.
And while you're eating and watching the games, make sure you take step back and think about what you're truly thankful for in your life.
And then tell those people who are part of that.
Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Fedun Scores
TigerBlog is trying to remember how many NHL games he's been to in his life.
He remembers going to an Edmonton Oilers-Philadelphia Flyers game at the Spectrum in 1980 or so, back when Wayne Gretzky was just breaking into the league after having played in the World Hockey Association, which didn't quite make it.
TB was there with two of his friends, and they found their seats and watched the first period. Then the people whose seats they really were came, pushing TB and his friends up to the third level of the building, whcih TB didn't even realize existed at the time.
He went to a Red Wings-Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. He saw the Sabres and Capitals at the Capital Center, the arena in Landover, Md., where Washington played before the Verizon Center was built. He's also gone to two games at the Verizon Center, courtesy of Kurt Kehl, who used to work in the OAC and is now a big-shot in the Caps organization.
Oh, and there was a Sabres-Islanders game at the Nassau Coliseum. That was also a long time ago.
And that's it, TB believes.
TB doesn't go to too many professional sporting events these days. He has his hands full with the college variety.
In his lifetime he's gone to way more Major League Baseball games than anything else, in part because of his two summers as a vendor at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. He went to a lot of games in his life at Shea Stadium, and some at the old Yankee Stadium.
He's been to a few NFL games, either at Giants Stadium or the Vet, and a bunch of NBA basketball, also at the Spectrum, MSG or the Meadowlands.
In other words, most of his professional sports attendance experience is at stadiums and arenas that no longer exist.
That's sort of sad, no?
Actually, TB doesn't even really watch too much professional sports on TV. He hasn't even seen much of the NFL this fall.
He definitely wasn't watching the Florida Panthers host the Edmonton Oilers last night, not on TV or computer or anything. And so he missed the first NHL goal by Princeton alum Taylor Fedun, who scored in his first NHL game.
TB did seek out the highlight this morning, and he found it on NHL.com.
Fedun seems sort of happy after the goal, what with a wide ear-to-ear smile.
The Oilers won the game 4-3, on Marc Arcobello's overtime goal. It was Arcobello's second goal of the game - and of his career as well.
And where did he go to college? Yale.
In other words, Edmonton won a game last night in which three of its four goals were scored by two players who had never scored a goal in the NHL before. And they were both Ivy League grads.
Has to be something of a first, TB would guess.
As for the two schools, they play each other Friday night in Princeton's home opener. It'll actually be the second meeting of the year between Princeton and Yale, after the teams met in a non-conference game at the Liberty Hockey Invitational at the Prudential Center - another arena TB has never been to - two weeks ago. Yale won that one 3-2.
Princeton has played four games and is 1-3, and all four games have been decided by either one or two goals. Princeton also hosts Brown Saturday night.
Yale, of course, won the NCAA championship in men's hockey last year. The Bulldogs and Tigers met three times, and though Yale won all three, there were two one-goal games and a two-goal game.
TigerBlog has said on many occasions that Baker Rink is a great place to see a game and could very well be the best gameday venue at Princeton.
It's even better when a rival like Yale is in town.
As for Fedun and Arcobello, TB can't imagine they won't have some sort of friendly wager on the game.
And they'll always have the bond from last night, when the two Ivy Leaguers got their first career goals in the same game.
Good for both of them.
He remembers going to an Edmonton Oilers-Philadelphia Flyers game at the Spectrum in 1980 or so, back when Wayne Gretzky was just breaking into the league after having played in the World Hockey Association, which didn't quite make it.
TB was there with two of his friends, and they found their seats and watched the first period. Then the people whose seats they really were came, pushing TB and his friends up to the third level of the building, whcih TB didn't even realize existed at the time.
He went to a Red Wings-Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. He saw the Sabres and Capitals at the Capital Center, the arena in Landover, Md., where Washington played before the Verizon Center was built. He's also gone to two games at the Verizon Center, courtesy of Kurt Kehl, who used to work in the OAC and is now a big-shot in the Caps organization.
Oh, and there was a Sabres-Islanders game at the Nassau Coliseum. That was also a long time ago.
And that's it, TB believes.
TB doesn't go to too many professional sporting events these days. He has his hands full with the college variety.
In his lifetime he's gone to way more Major League Baseball games than anything else, in part because of his two summers as a vendor at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. He went to a lot of games in his life at Shea Stadium, and some at the old Yankee Stadium.
He's been to a few NFL games, either at Giants Stadium or the Vet, and a bunch of NBA basketball, also at the Spectrum, MSG or the Meadowlands.
In other words, most of his professional sports attendance experience is at stadiums and arenas that no longer exist.
That's sort of sad, no?
Actually, TB doesn't even really watch too much professional sports on TV. He hasn't even seen much of the NFL this fall.
He definitely wasn't watching the Florida Panthers host the Edmonton Oilers last night, not on TV or computer or anything. And so he missed the first NHL goal by Princeton alum Taylor Fedun, who scored in his first NHL game.
TB did seek out the highlight this morning, and he found it on NHL.com.
Fedun seems sort of happy after the goal, what with a wide ear-to-ear smile.
The Oilers won the game 4-3, on Marc Arcobello's overtime goal. It was Arcobello's second goal of the game - and of his career as well.
And where did he go to college? Yale.
In other words, Edmonton won a game last night in which three of its four goals were scored by two players who had never scored a goal in the NHL before. And they were both Ivy League grads.
Has to be something of a first, TB would guess.
As for the two schools, they play each other Friday night in Princeton's home opener. It'll actually be the second meeting of the year between Princeton and Yale, after the teams met in a non-conference game at the Liberty Hockey Invitational at the Prudential Center - another arena TB has never been to - two weeks ago. Yale won that one 3-2.
Princeton has played four games and is 1-3, and all four games have been decided by either one or two goals. Princeton also hosts Brown Saturday night.
Yale, of course, won the NCAA championship in men's hockey last year. The Bulldogs and Tigers met three times, and though Yale won all three, there were two one-goal games and a two-goal game.
TigerBlog has said on many occasions that Baker Rink is a great place to see a game and could very well be the best gameday venue at Princeton.
It's even better when a rival like Yale is in town.
As for Fedun and Arcobello, TB can't imagine they won't have some sort of friendly wager on the game.
And they'll always have the bond from last night, when the two Ivy Leaguers got their first career goals in the same game.
Good for both of them.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Princeton vs. Cornell x 9
At first, it appeared that there was only one, a teenage boy, dressed as a hunter. As TigerBlog answered the door, the kid said that there had been a report of zombies in the area.
Just as TB began to process that, the second kid jumped out from behind the bushes, dressed as a zombie. It was a tad startling, TB will admit.
The first kid then "attacked" the second kid, presumably saving TB's house from the zombie menace. TB was so impressed he had them take extra candy.
Performance trick or treating with a zombie theme. Good stuff.
Most of the trick-or-treaters were little kids, dressed in all kinds of wholesome costumes. Of course, maybe they just appeared wholesome; after all, when Miss TigerBlog was still Little Miss TigerBlog, the most popular costume was "Hannah Montana."
If you care, which you probably don't, TB didn't have a single piece of candy.
And that's that for Halloween 2013.
Now it's time to shift attention from orange and black to Orange and Black vs. Big Red.
The last time TigerBlog saw a Princeton-Cornell game, it was the semifinals of the Ivy League men's lacrosse tournament, when Mike McDonald scored seven goals, Kip Orban ripped one of the most unstoppable shots ever and Princeton won 14-13 in overtime in one of the best games TB has ever seen.
He doubts the Princeton-Cornell rivalry will match that night back in May this weekend, but it certainly won't be lacking in opportunities.
You think Princeton played Harvard a lot last weekend, when they got together five times? Princeton and Cornell meet in nine sports in the next 35 or so hours.
Eight sports:
men's hockey (tonight in Ithaca)
women's hockey (tonight at 7 at Baker Rink)
men's and women's cross country (tomorrow at 11 and noon at West Windsor Fields as part of the Ivy League Heptagonal championships)
field hockey (tomorrow at noon on Bedford Field)
football (tomorrow at 1 on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium)
men's soccer (tomorrow at 4 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium)
women's volleyball (tomorrow at 5 at Dillon Gym)
women's soccer (tomorrow at 7 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium)
Yup. Nine sports competing against Cornell in two days.
TigerBlog would put Princeton-Cornell men's lacrosse up there with any rivalry in any Ivy League sport right now, maybe even at the top. In general, though, Princeton-Cornell isn't quite what Princeton-Penn or Princeton-Harvard-Yale are to most Princeton fans.
Still, all league rivalries are big, and this weekend features some huge events between the Tigers and Big Red. And TB cannot imagine there are too many other instances of two colleges meeting in nine sports in two days.
The rain that soaked TigerBlog on the way from the parking lot to the building has stopped, and the sun is supposed to shine all weekend on the greater Princeton metropolitan area.
Of the nine events, five directly impact the Ivy League championship race - the two cross country races, men's soccer, field hockey and football.
Princeton is 3-0 in the league in football after last weekend's riveting 51-48 three OT win over Harvard. Princeton and Penn are the only unbeatens in the league right now.
A year ago, Princeton was also 3-0 after a win over Harvard and then lost three of the last four, starting in Ithaca.
So what is different this year? Cornell still has Jeff Mathews, who recently passed Tiger offensive coordinator James Perry as the league's all-time passing yardage leader. Mathews has had great games in his career against Princeton, throwing for 998 in three games, one of which was in a driving snowstorm, ironically enough, not in Ithaca but rather Princeton two years ago,
But this isn't the same Princeton team. A year ago, Princeton was coming off back to back 1-9s and just figuring out how to be competitive. This year, Princeton is better both physically and mentally and probably more able to handle the week after the huge win and before the big game at Penn next week.
Tomorrow will tell, of course.
Conventional wisdom is that it's going to be a high-scoring game, as Princeton's offense has been rolling and Mathews can usually be counted on to put up big numbers himself. Add in perfect weather conditions and that's certainly possible.
Either way, it's a huge moment for the Tigers. At the very least, a win would improve the Tigers to 6-1 overall and guarantee the first winning record for the program since its 2006 Ivy League championship. Hey, when you were 1-9 and 1-9 two and three years ago, that's not something to take for granted.
Of course, that's not what the Tigers are thinking. They're thinking big.
One Saturday at a time. The test this weekend is big. Big Red actually.
In football and eight other sports.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Princeton vs. Harvard x 5
TigerBlog has always tried to get his kids - and other people's kids - to understand how to avoid trouble.
His basic rule is this: If they have to stop and ask themselves if what they're thinking about doing is a good idea, it isn't. When in doubt, don't do it.
He's recently added this corollary: the busier teenage kids are, the less likely they are to get in trouble. It can be sports, music, other extra-curricular activities, schoolwork - every hour they spend doing those things is one hour less that they can be bored and open to bad decisions.
Beyond that, when teenage kids do get in trouble, it usually seems to include one or more of these five things: hanging out with the wrong people, being out after midnight, drugs/alcohol, sex and/or gambling.
The last one isn't something that gets the attention of the others, but it can be just as devastating.
And it's everywhere, especially in the NFL, with its point spreads, over-unders, Super Bowl polls and everything else.
Gambling can become as addicting as drugs, and TB had a friend in college who fell into the pattern of losing and then trying to make it back on the next game, only to dig the hole deeper until it became a huge problem.
Few things pose a bigger threat to the integrity of athletics than gambling, and point-shaving scandals have been hugely devastating. That's part of the reason that the NCAA is so adamant about getting its anti-gambling messages out there.
And if you work at an NCAA school, you can't miss the message. Gambling - any gambling on any sport that the NCAA sponsors - is not permitted. In any form. No matter how small.
The OAC has an NCAA basketball pool each year, but for no money. Even if it was for a $5 or something like that, it would be a very big deal, and people's jobs could be lost over it.
TB and his co-workers are constantly making wager-like comments but never, ever would actually include money as part of the deal.
Wager-like comments?
Like yesterday, for instance, when this was the question:
"If you get two points for a win and one for a tie, who would win Saturday, Princeton or Harvard?"
It's a huge Saturday in Cambridge, as Princeton takes on Harvard - five times.
It starts at noon with field hockey and continues at 1 with football, 4 with men's soccer and women's hockey and 7 with women's soccer.
It's the weekend following midterms, which means that Princeton's teams will be either 1) tired or 2) chomping at the bit.
Princeton is currently in first place or tied for first place in the league in field hockey, football and men's soccer. Harvard is currently in first place or tied for first in football and women's soccer and is very much in the thick of it in men's soccer.
In other words, these games will be huge.
In men's soccer, for instance, Princeton is 2-0-1, tied with Penn and Yale. Harvard is 2-1-0, which leaves the Crimson right there as the league race is at the halfway point.
Of the eight men's soccer teams in the Ivy League, only three are currently over .500 overall.
In women's soccer, all eight schools are at least .500 and seven are over .500. Princeton has had some awful luck in its league games, and the Tigers season shows how hard it is to go 7-0-0, which is what they did a year ago.
Only five teams have ever gone 7-0-0 in Ivy women's soccer. Harvard is currently 4-0-0 and the only Ivy team that has a chance for a perfect league record and is 8-0-1 in its last nine games. Don't think Princeton wants to ruin all that?
The reverse is true in field hockey, where Princeton is alone in first at 4-0 and Harvard is 1-3, tied for sixth. Women's hockey season is just starting out.
And then there's football.
Princeton is 2-0 in the league. So is Harvard. So is Penn, for that matter. Princeton has looked great this year. Harvard is very strong. Penn is the defending champion.
And of course Harvard remembers what happened last year, when Princeton came from 34-10 down with 12 minutes to go to beat the Crimson 39-34.
At the time it seemed miraculous. Now? The idea that Princeton can score 29 points in 12 minutes hardly seems shocking.
The fall/winter overlap is starting, but even with that, the only home events this weekend are in men's water polo. The men's hockey team is close to home, playing at the Prudential Center in Newark in the Liberty Hockey Invitational today at 4 and tomorrow at 7.
The big games are in Cambridge this weekend though.
Princeton vs. Harvard, times five.
His basic rule is this: If they have to stop and ask themselves if what they're thinking about doing is a good idea, it isn't. When in doubt, don't do it.
He's recently added this corollary: the busier teenage kids are, the less likely they are to get in trouble. It can be sports, music, other extra-curricular activities, schoolwork - every hour they spend doing those things is one hour less that they can be bored and open to bad decisions.
Beyond that, when teenage kids do get in trouble, it usually seems to include one or more of these five things: hanging out with the wrong people, being out after midnight, drugs/alcohol, sex and/or gambling.
The last one isn't something that gets the attention of the others, but it can be just as devastating.
And it's everywhere, especially in the NFL, with its point spreads, over-unders, Super Bowl polls and everything else.
Gambling can become as addicting as drugs, and TB had a friend in college who fell into the pattern of losing and then trying to make it back on the next game, only to dig the hole deeper until it became a huge problem.
Few things pose a bigger threat to the integrity of athletics than gambling, and point-shaving scandals have been hugely devastating. That's part of the reason that the NCAA is so adamant about getting its anti-gambling messages out there.
And if you work at an NCAA school, you can't miss the message. Gambling - any gambling on any sport that the NCAA sponsors - is not permitted. In any form. No matter how small.
The OAC has an NCAA basketball pool each year, but for no money. Even if it was for a $5 or something like that, it would be a very big deal, and people's jobs could be lost over it.
TB and his co-workers are constantly making wager-like comments but never, ever would actually include money as part of the deal.
Wager-like comments?
Like yesterday, for instance, when this was the question:
"If you get two points for a win and one for a tie, who would win Saturday, Princeton or Harvard?"
It's a huge Saturday in Cambridge, as Princeton takes on Harvard - five times.
It starts at noon with field hockey and continues at 1 with football, 4 with men's soccer and women's hockey and 7 with women's soccer.
It's the weekend following midterms, which means that Princeton's teams will be either 1) tired or 2) chomping at the bit.
Princeton is currently in first place or tied for first place in the league in field hockey, football and men's soccer. Harvard is currently in first place or tied for first in football and women's soccer and is very much in the thick of it in men's soccer.
In other words, these games will be huge.
In men's soccer, for instance, Princeton is 2-0-1, tied with Penn and Yale. Harvard is 2-1-0, which leaves the Crimson right there as the league race is at the halfway point.
Of the eight men's soccer teams in the Ivy League, only three are currently over .500 overall.
In women's soccer, all eight schools are at least .500 and seven are over .500. Princeton has had some awful luck in its league games, and the Tigers season shows how hard it is to go 7-0-0, which is what they did a year ago.
Only five teams have ever gone 7-0-0 in Ivy women's soccer. Harvard is currently 4-0-0 and the only Ivy team that has a chance for a perfect league record and is 8-0-1 in its last nine games. Don't think Princeton wants to ruin all that?
The reverse is true in field hockey, where Princeton is alone in first at 4-0 and Harvard is 1-3, tied for sixth. Women's hockey season is just starting out.
And then there's football.
Princeton is 2-0 in the league. So is Harvard. So is Penn, for that matter. Princeton has looked great this year. Harvard is very strong. Penn is the defending champion.
And of course Harvard remembers what happened last year, when Princeton came from 34-10 down with 12 minutes to go to beat the Crimson 39-34.
At the time it seemed miraculous. Now? The idea that Princeton can score 29 points in 12 minutes hardly seems shocking.
The fall/winter overlap is starting, but even with that, the only home events this weekend are in men's water polo. The men's hockey team is close to home, playing at the Prudential Center in Newark in the Liberty Hockey Invitational today at 4 and tomorrow at 7.
The big games are in Cambridge this weekend though.
Princeton vs. Harvard, times five.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Fight On
TigerBlog takes 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C each morning and night and is never found without hand sanitizer in his pocket or Clorox wipes in his car.
Okay, maybe he overdoes it just a tad.
Even from that perspective, TB doesn't understand why so many people are adamant about not getting flu shots.
Yesterday was the start of FluFest at Princeton. Each year, faculty, staff and students can get free flu shots, as well as take advantage of some other wellness efforts.
TB, as he is every year, was near the front of the line for the shot. He prefers the shot to the mist, because it's his contention that he's going to get the mist, sneeze and then be sick all winter.
What amazes TB is how many people say they're not going to get flu shots each year. The reasons are always the same - "oh, I never get sick" or "the shot makes me sick" or "it doesn't stop all kinds of the flu."
Anyway, TB got his shot yesterday, and in doing so, he has taken a major step forward in not getting the flu this winter. Sure, it's not 100%. But it's such a simple thing, and TB sees no downside to getting one.
When TB gets a shot, he always does the same thing. He looks away, and then a split second after he feels the needle, he asks the person who is giving him the shot to let him know when it's about to happen. Of course it's already happened and they all say that, but TB thinks it makes them feel good to know that he's at least pretending he didn't feel it.
For the most part, TB is okay getting a vaccination. Every now and then, one won't exactly go smoothly. Tetanus, for instance. That one always feels like there's a rock in there.
And then there was the one cortisone shot he got. The doctor said that it might burn a little, and as it was searing through muscle and whatever else got in its way, TB said "it sure does, doesn't it."
The flu shots always come this time of year and serve as a reminder that summer is over and the cold weather is on the way. It's been hot here of late, and TB just looked at the weather and saw that the temperature is supposed to drop about 15 degrees within 10 days.
Hockey and basketball teams are already practicing, and opening day isn't that far away. For that matter, there is an exhibition women's hockey game this Sunday.
Opening day for Princeton men's hockey is Oct. 25 and 26 - three weeks from now; how is that possible? - at the Liberty Hockey Invitational at the Prudential Center in Newark, the home of the New Jersey Devils.
The NHL season started the other day, and the most newsworthy thing that happened in the first few games involved Princeton alum George Parros.
There's no doubt that you have seen it already, how Parros - now with the Montreal Canadiens - got into a fight on opening night against Colton Orr of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Actually, they fought twice, and it was during the second one that Parros got tangled up, tripped and fell face-first to the ice.
Parros struggled to get up, but it was clear from the start he wasn't doing well. Orr motioned immediately to the bench for help. Eventually, Parros was removed on a stretcher with a concussion.
Parros has had quite a career in the NHL.
At Princeton, he was the best player on some teams that weren't the strongest Princeton has ever had. He was a solid scorer his first three years, before an injury-plagued senior year, and that plus his size got him a shot at the NHL.
He quickly became an enforcer, this time with a gimmick - Princeton grad turns NHL goon. He even fought another Princeton alum, Kevin Westgarth, something that became great fodder for highlight shows.
Hey, Parros even won a Stanley Cup with Anaheim and brought the Cup to Baker Rink on his day with it in the summer.
What happened to him the other night wasn't funny at all. It could have been fatal.
In a world where sports are taking seriously the effects of head injuries - especially football - professional hockey really needs to figure out if this is what it wants to be in 2013.
Hey, even baseball is talking about making pitchers wear helmets, something base coaches have had to do for years.
But in the NHL, fighting - street brawling - is just part of the MO. Ever since TB was a kid, he's hated the hockey fighting. It takes away from the game. It cheapens the sport.
But it sells tickets. Look in the stands during a fight, and you can see the glee on the faces of the spectators.
It's a time that has come and gone. It's not a sign of toughness that hockey players can fight.
Actually, maybe it is.
These days, there are more important things in sports than proving toughness.
George Parros tweeted that he was doing okay after the game and that he was thankful so many people had reached out.
He's lucky. It could have been much, much worse.
Okay, maybe he overdoes it just a tad.
Even from that perspective, TB doesn't understand why so many people are adamant about not getting flu shots.
Yesterday was the start of FluFest at Princeton. Each year, faculty, staff and students can get free flu shots, as well as take advantage of some other wellness efforts.
TB, as he is every year, was near the front of the line for the shot. He prefers the shot to the mist, because it's his contention that he's going to get the mist, sneeze and then be sick all winter.
What amazes TB is how many people say they're not going to get flu shots each year. The reasons are always the same - "oh, I never get sick" or "the shot makes me sick" or "it doesn't stop all kinds of the flu."
Anyway, TB got his shot yesterday, and in doing so, he has taken a major step forward in not getting the flu this winter. Sure, it's not 100%. But it's such a simple thing, and TB sees no downside to getting one.
When TB gets a shot, he always does the same thing. He looks away, and then a split second after he feels the needle, he asks the person who is giving him the shot to let him know when it's about to happen. Of course it's already happened and they all say that, but TB thinks it makes them feel good to know that he's at least pretending he didn't feel it.
For the most part, TB is okay getting a vaccination. Every now and then, one won't exactly go smoothly. Tetanus, for instance. That one always feels like there's a rock in there.
And then there was the one cortisone shot he got. The doctor said that it might burn a little, and as it was searing through muscle and whatever else got in its way, TB said "it sure does, doesn't it."
The flu shots always come this time of year and serve as a reminder that summer is over and the cold weather is on the way. It's been hot here of late, and TB just looked at the weather and saw that the temperature is supposed to drop about 15 degrees within 10 days.
Hockey and basketball teams are already practicing, and opening day isn't that far away. For that matter, there is an exhibition women's hockey game this Sunday.
Opening day for Princeton men's hockey is Oct. 25 and 26 - three weeks from now; how is that possible? - at the Liberty Hockey Invitational at the Prudential Center in Newark, the home of the New Jersey Devils.
The NHL season started the other day, and the most newsworthy thing that happened in the first few games involved Princeton alum George Parros.
There's no doubt that you have seen it already, how Parros - now with the Montreal Canadiens - got into a fight on opening night against Colton Orr of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Actually, they fought twice, and it was during the second one that Parros got tangled up, tripped and fell face-first to the ice.
Parros struggled to get up, but it was clear from the start he wasn't doing well. Orr motioned immediately to the bench for help. Eventually, Parros was removed on a stretcher with a concussion.
Parros has had quite a career in the NHL.
At Princeton, he was the best player on some teams that weren't the strongest Princeton has ever had. He was a solid scorer his first three years, before an injury-plagued senior year, and that plus his size got him a shot at the NHL.
He quickly became an enforcer, this time with a gimmick - Princeton grad turns NHL goon. He even fought another Princeton alum, Kevin Westgarth, something that became great fodder for highlight shows.
Hey, Parros even won a Stanley Cup with Anaheim and brought the Cup to Baker Rink on his day with it in the summer.
What happened to him the other night wasn't funny at all. It could have been fatal.
In a world where sports are taking seriously the effects of head injuries - especially football - professional hockey really needs to figure out if this is what it wants to be in 2013.
Hey, even baseball is talking about making pitchers wear helmets, something base coaches have had to do for years.
But in the NHL, fighting - street brawling - is just part of the MO. Ever since TB was a kid, he's hated the hockey fighting. It takes away from the game. It cheapens the sport.
But it sells tickets. Look in the stands during a fight, and you can see the glee on the faces of the spectators.
It's a time that has come and gone. It's not a sign of toughness that hockey players can fight.
Actually, maybe it is.
These days, there are more important things in sports than proving toughness.
George Parros tweeted that he was doing okay after the game and that he was thankful so many people had reached out.
He's lucky. It could have been much, much worse.
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