Two Championships, One Today And One Tomorrow

Where to start with your week? 

Should TigerBlog go with the women's hockey team, which came out on top of the final ECAC regular season standings after a wild weekend? Or perhaps with the women's squash team and its dominant Ivy League championship? 

Both are compelling. Both earned home postseason berths with their wins this weekend.  

He considered combining the two into one entry, but that didn't seem fair, given what both teams accomplished. So what did he do? 

He used the random number app on his phone and asked it to generate a number between 1-100. If it came up evens, he'd start with women's hockey. If it came up odds, he go with women's squash. 

It came up "43," so it's women's squash day. Tomorrow will be women's hockey.  

You know which team TigerBlog was rooting for in the Princeton-Harvard women's squash match yesterday? 

Hint - It's not necessarily obvious. Hint 2 - It was Princeton, but ... 

Princeton defeated Harvard 7-2 yesterday to close out a perfect Ivy League regular season. The win gave the Tigers the outright Ivy League championship and the host role for the first Ivy League women's squash tournament, which will come to the Meadows racket center this coming weekend. 

There's a lot more to Princeton's win than just that, though. 

Harvard came into the weekend ranked No. 1 in the country and why not? The Crimson have been a machine of late, with 10 of the last 13 Howe Cup national championships. Princeton, by the way, was ranked second, while Penn was ranked third. 

In the league? Harvard had won nine straight titles entering this weekend and had a 74-match regular-season Ivy League winning streak.  

The weekend began with Princeton and Harvard unbeaten, followed by Penn, with only a 6-3 loss to Princeton. The Crimson started their weekend in Philadelphia Saturday, at the same time the Tigers hosted Dartmouth.  

Princeton, as expected, won 9-0. Harvard-Penn? The winning streak ended there, as the Quakers won 6-3. 

That set up yesterday's final day of the regular season. A Penn win over Dartmouth, which was something of a given, would leave the Quakers with one league loss. A Harvard win would have set up a three-way tie. A Princeton win would have meant the championship outright for the Tigers. 

Maybe TB should have let the drama build, but he already gave away the ending. If you forgot, it was 7-2 Tigers. In only one match did Princeton lose more than one game. 

The 7-0 run through the league was Princeton's first since 2013. The Tigers have now won seven league championships all time.  

Meanwhile, back at which team TigerBlog was rooting for in the match? That would be Princeton field hockey. Where did the field hockey team fit in? 

Well, TFH, as its known, went into the academic year tied with Harvard for the most Ivy League championships all time for any women's programs with 28 each. Princeton reached the NCAA field hockey championship game and won the league tournament this past fall, but it did not win the regular season, which is where the championship is officially won. 

As such, Harvard women's squash would have taken a 29-28 lead in championships with another one. Instead, the two remained tied at the top. TB even sent a text to the team group chat telling the players to thank a squash friend.

The Ivy League squash tournament is new. Unlike the other Ivy tournaments, there is no automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, as the squash national championship is decided by the College Squash Association's Howe Cup tournament. 

It should still be a fascinating event. Princeton, as the top seed, will play fourth seed Cornell. Penn and Harvard will have their rematch (by virtue of the women's win, the men's tournament will also be at Princeton and feature the Tigers, Yale, Harvard and Penn; the men's winner will host both tournaments next year). Both tournaments will be held this coming Saturday and Sunday; the CSA championships for both will be March 5-8 in Philadelphia. 

So that's the women's squash. Women's hockey will be here tomorrow. 

Oh, and skeleton too.  

Beginnings, Middles, Ends And More

It's opening weekend for some, championship weekend for others and pretty much anything in between for the rest. 

In other words, there's a lot going on this weekend, so TigerBlog will jump right into it.

*

The women's basketball team is at Columbia tonight at 6, in a game that will be televised on ESPNU. Princeton is a game up on the Lions and Harvard as they head into the weekend, though all three figure to be locks for the upcoming Ivy League tournament. 

Columbia and Princeton played two weeks ago in Jadwin Gym, where the Lions won 73-67 to give the Tigers their only league loss (and only loss in the last 17 games). There were eight players in that game (five Lions, three Tigers) who were in double figures. 

Columbia then turned around and lost the following night at Penn. Like that weekend, this one is also a back-to-back, with Princeton then at Cornell Saturday at 5 and Penn at Columbia. 

Princeton-Columbia women's games have become incredibly intense the last few years, and tonight's game figures to be no different. No matter what happens tonight, both teams will have to turn it around in less than 24 hours and be ready to play again. 

*

Opening weekend? Yes it is, for Princeton softball and men's lacrosse. 

The softball team is in Florida, where it will play games at Jacksonville and North Florida, whose campus is located within walking distance of TB's college roommate Charlie's house. 

By the way, here is the closest beach to North Florida. It's about a 15-minute ride from the campus: 

TigerBlog took that picture when he was there in December. He didn't realize how close North Florida was to his friend's house. It certainly looks like a good place to watch softball, especially in February. 

The season actually kicks off today, when Princeton will be at Jacksonville to take on Stony Brook at 11 am and the host Dolphins at 4. The venue shifts to North Florida tomorrow, for games at 3 and 5 against Stony Brook again and then UNF. Princeton will then play Iona Sunday, also at North Florida at 10 am.

Princeton has won four straight Ivy League championships and is now the preseason favorite to make it five, after the league poll was announced this week. 

*

The Jacksonville forecast is for sunshine and temps near or above 70 this weekend. The Princeton forecast for tomorrow is for sunshine and 44 degrees, which, after the last month, will feel like 70 degrees.

The moderation in the weather comes at a perfect time, as the third-ranked Princeton men's lacrosse team opens a season of great promise with a visit from Penn State (noon). The Tigers won in State College last year in a game that was moved indoors, and there was some thought that this game might have to find an indoor site too until this forecast came along. 

Penn State is playing its third game, with a win over Colgate that was followed by an overtime loss to Villanova last week. The game on Sherrerd Field tomorrow starts a stretch of four games in 16 days, all against teams who, like Princeton, have a legitimate chance to win the NCAA championship. 

After this game, it'll be Princeton at No. 1 Maryland and then home against No. 2 Syracuse and No. 5 North Carolina. If you're into good lacrosse, there's plenty of it coming your way. 

*

Princeton's athletic website yesterday featured two, well, features. 

One of them was from TigerBlog's colleague Warren Croxton, who wrote about former women's basketball player Krystal Hill, Class of 2011. You can read his story HERE.

Hill was a big part of the great transformation of Princeton women's basketball, which went 7-23 her freshman year, 14-14 her sophomore year and then 26-3 and 24-5 her last two years, winning the league championship both times and reaching the NCAA tournament for the first two times in program history. 

Since then, there has been nothing but sustained success — for the team and for Hill, who went on to medical school at Penn and now is an internal medicine physician at the Veteran Affairs medical center in Houston and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine,

The other feature is TigerBlog's story on men's lacrosse senior Chad Palumbo, the preseason Division I Midfielder of the Year by USA Lacrosse. Palumbo's story is about way more than lacrosse, though. 

He was diagnosed with a rare soft tissue cancer before his senior year of high school, and his resilience in the face of that illness has been inspiring. His growth as a lacrosse player has also been impressive, to the point where he's gone from being benched as a freshman to being a captain this year. 

Oh, and he also tied the program record for goals in an NCAA tournament game last spring with six against Syracuse in the quarterfinals, despite sustaining a knee injury on the first of those goals. It would be six months before he was fully recovered. 

You can read about Chad HERE.

*

The Ivy League women's squash championship and host role for the inaugural league tournament will be decided this weekend at the racket center at the Meadows Campus. Princeton hosts Dartmouth tomorrow and then No. 1 Harvard Sunday, with both at noon. 

This is from the preview story on goprincetontigers.com:

Harvard and Princeton are both 4-0, with Penn right behind at 3-1. All three teams have clinched Ivy League Tournament bids, with the fourth spot coming down to the last weekend among 2-3 Cornell, 1-3 Dartmouth and 1-3 Yale. Harvard will go to Penn on Saturday before coming to Princeton. The women's top seed will host the tournament, set for Feb. 21-22. 

The men will also host Dartmouth and Harvard this weekend, with start time also at noon. The building will also be the host for the ECAC men's tennis championships (No. 2 seed Princeton plays Dartmouth tonight at 6).

*

This is the final weekend of the ECAC women's hockey regular season. As TB wrote Tuesday, Princeton is still very much in the running for the championship. 

First-place Princeton hosts Yale tonight (6) and Brown tomorrow (3). The Tigers are already assured of no worse than fourth place in the league, which means a first-round playoff bye and the host role for a best-of-three quarterfinal series. 

Princeton has 44 points entering this weekend, two ahead of second place Yale. There are almost endless scenarios for the way the weekend breaks, but obviously Princeton can win the championship by winning out. 

*

The complete schedule for the weekend is HERE. 

Remembering Lorin Maurer, 17 Years Later

TigerBlog goes back into the archives today, back 16 years ago to be exact.

It was on that day that he, and the rest of Princeton Department of Athletics and world beyond, woke up to the shocking news of the plane crash outside of Buffalo. Among those killed was Lorin Maurer, who oversaw the Princeton Athletic Friends Groups at the time. She had just turned 30; she'd be nearing 50 today.

 

Each year since, TB has written about the emotions of losing a colleague and a friend. With each year, the number of people who knew Lorin has dwindled until now there are only a handful left who remember her, the warmth she always displayed, the smile that never went away. In fact, her smile is the last thing TB ever saw from her. 

 

Here is how TB put it back in 2009, with the comments he received afterwards... Lorin, you were truly an exceptional person, and nobody who knew you will ever forget you:

 

When she walked past the door of TigerBlog HQ yesterday afternoon, like she had a million times before and figured to a million times again, Lorin Maurer paused, smiled and kept going. She never said a word; TigerBlog didn't say anything back to her.

Who could have ever have imagined it would be the last time he'd ever see her?

Lorin Maurer was killed late Thursday night when Continental Connection Flight 3407 crashed near Buffalo. She was heading there for the wedding of her boyfriend's brother (her boyfriend was not on the flight); she was just 30 years old.

TigerBlog knew Lorin since she first started working here in 2005. We've worked together any number of times on all kinds of projects. As with any people who approach projects from different angles, we had our disagreements and clashes, but for the most part we were on the same page.

She was young and full of life. She had accomplished a great deal in her young life, and sadly, much of that was learned while writing her obituary. The last time TigerBlog ever saw her summed her up perfectly. Nothing to say? Flash a smile, and let that speak for you: "Hello; hope you're doing okay; I'll see you another time."

So what to make of all this? How do you make sense of the fact that a 30-year-old just starting out, with so much energy and zest, is gone like that? How do you rationalize the fact that you were just in the same meeting the day she died, that you have another meeting scheduled with her on Monday? How do you figure that you came to HQ figuring to work on a lacrosse program and that you wrote a youthful colleague's obit instead?

The first reaction is that you never know what's coming down the road, so you have to stop every day to appreciate whom you have and what you have. But that should all be obvious. It's not something we all do enough of, but Lorin's passing isn't going to change that.

She had a great many friends here at Princeton, not only in the athletic department but also in development and with alums throughout the country with whom she interacted. She was well-liked and well-respected for the job she did.

TigerBlog thought for awhile about something profound to say, some inspiration to draw from her death. In the end, what is there to say?

She was here yesterday, so alive. She's gone today. It's beyond sad.

That's all there is to say.

44 Down

TigerBlog loves to do the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. 

The easiest puzzle of the week is Monday's, and they're supposed to get progressively harder as the week goes along. TB sometimes goes with the "check" function, which will show him if he's gotten everything correct to that point. 

What he won't do is cheat — unless that counts as cheating, which he doesn't think it does. Sometimes he'll reach out to someone for help, especially on pop culture. That's about it. 

There's also a crossword archive that goes all the back to the 1990s. Those are fun, considering how much the world has evolved, technology has changed, pop-culture has moved along and phrases are different, al of which makes the clues completely different. 

Yesterday's puzzle was fairly easy. TB finished it in less than 20 minutes. 

Here was 37-across: 

"Toy Story 2" character who says "I'm packing you an extra pair of shoes, and your angry eyes, just in case"

That was clearly Mrs. Potato Head, who was voiced by Estelle Harris. Mr. Potato Head was voiced by Don Rickles, by the way. 

Then there was 66-across. It was definitely a challenge: 

Catholic university whose mascot is a lion, aptly.

Turns out the answer is St. Leo. TB got that because he had the "t," "e" and "o."

Ah, but this was a special edition of the puzzle, largely because of 44-down and 45-down. Here they were:

44 down: John ___, longtime writer for The New Yorker
45 down: State that's the subject of 44-Down's book "Coming Into the Country"

They were both six letters. 

How great was this? The answers are, of course, "McPhee" and "Alaska." TigerBlog has read almost all the books of the first, including "Coming Into The Country," of which he has a signed copy. 

Mr. McPhee, as you probably know, is one of TigerBlog's heroes and favorite people. They have spent hours and hours and hours together, riding bikes, talking about the writing process, talking about Princeton Athletics history, talking about pretty much anything. Oh, and they've even gone fishing together. 

That's one of TB's favorite pictures ever. 

McPhee, now in his 90s, is a member of the Class of 1953. His father Harry was the team physician for Princeton Athletics in the 1930s and ’40s, and John grew up around Princeton games and athletes.  

What are your plans for your 90th birthday? John McPhee and TigerBlog rode together for 11 miles on the day McPhee turned 90. That's a good goal to have, right? How many 90 year olds do you know, let alone 90 year olds who could ride 11 miles?  

John McPhee has been a living, breathing almanac of Princeton Athletics. His roommate at Princeton was Dick Kazmaier, the 1951 Heisman Trophy winner. His first book was about Bill Bradley and his senior year of 1964-65. He was incredibly close with Pete Carril and is still incredibly close with Bill Tierney. 

He taught a writing seminar at Princeton for five decades, impacting hundreds of students. He has been a longtime Fellow with the men's lacrosse team, where his influence has been felt by another few hundred Princeton students.  

And, of course, by TigerBlog, who has learned a lot from his time with Mr. McPhee. Included in their time together have been three international trips with the men's lacrosse team — they've ridden together in Portugal, Spain and Costa Rica. 

Mr. McPhee has told TigerBlog some of the best, funniest, deepest, well-communicated stories he's ever heard. There are so many of them that TB hardly would know where to start to share them. Trust him though. Every second of them has been way worth it.   

And there John was, in the New York Times crossword puzzle yesterday. TigerBlog smiled and then filled in the correct answers. 

It was a welcome sight in his daily puzzle.  

And of course, if there had been a crossword clue that was, say, a nine-letter word for "has written five days a week since 2009," he's certain that Mr. McPhee would have easily gotten "TigerBlog." 

Skating To The Finish

Today might be the day, finally. 

 For what, you might wonder? Today, for the first time in 28 days, the forecast for Princeton calls for temperatures to actually go above freezing. 

If you're wondering, those 27 straight days without getting to at least 33 degrees is a record for these parts, by a lot. TigerBlog read a story about how the previous record was 14 straight days, set back in 1961 and equalled in 1979. 

TB doesn't remember such a cold snap back in 1979, when he was in high school. He does know that the past four weeks here have been brutal. 

He'd go so far as to say that this past Saturday was the coldest day he can ever remember in the Central New Jersey area, where he grew up and where he has worked for four decades. It was 1 degree Saturday morning when he got into his car, with the windchill somewhere around minus-20.

And now there is at least the slightest hint that winter might finally be letting its vice grip go. Oh, and TigerBlog can hear his longtime friend and fellow Ivy League sports chronicler Bruce Wood — he of the Big Green Alert and the Dartmouth coverage — laughing at TB for thinking that this is cold. 

When TB asked the question a few weeks ago about who could possibly like winter more than summer, Bruce sent him a two-word email: "I can."

TigerBlog saw someone ice skating on the Delaware-Raritan Canal as he drove home yesterday afternoon. That's something he's never seen before. 

There is still important ice skating to be done indoors at Baker Rink in the next few weeks. 

There is only one weekend to go in the ECAC and Ivy League women's hockey regular seasons. For Princeton, that means home games against Yale Friday (6) and Brown Saturday (3). Here's the way things stand right now, starting with the ECAC:

* Princeton is in first place with 44 points, two ahead of second-place Yale as the teams get set to meet Friday night. Keep in mind that teams get three points for a regulation win, two points for an OT win, 1.5 points for a tie, one point for an OT loss and zero points for a regulation loss. TB leaves you to do the math. Quinnipiac, by the way, is in third with 40 points with games against Brown and Yale as well, and the Bears are tied for fourth place with 38 points along with Clarkson. The top four teams get a first-round tournament bye and will host the quarterfinal round.

* The Ivy League women's hockey champion is determined by the ECAC games involving Ivy teams against other Ivy teams, as opposed to a separate schedule of games. Princeton is in fourth place in the league and needs a sweep this weekend to have a chance at the Ivy title. 

As for Princeton men's hockey, the Tigers have played 16 ECAC games so far, with six more to go. That's two per weekend for three more weeks.

A year ago, in 22 ECAC games, Princeton had 25 points, finishing in ninth place in the league standings. Through those 16 games this season, Princeton already has 31 points, leaving the team in fourth place at this stage. 

Remember — the top four teams get a first-round tournament bye and get to host the quarterfinals. 

What's the difference this year? Last year, Princeton gave up 73 goals in 22 ECAC games, which equals 3.32 goals-against per game. At the same time, Princeton scored 55 goals in 22 games, which is 2.5 per game. 

This year, Princeton has already scored 51 goals in 16 games. That's 3.2 per game. And defensively? Princeton has allowed only 39 goals in 16 games, for an average of 2.4. That's one goal less allowed per game and one more scored per game. 

That's a winning formula. 

Not shockingly, Princeton's Arthur Smith was named the ECAC Goalie of the Week this past week after wins over Yale and Brown, with a 2.00 goals-against average and a .907 save percentage. Smith is now the first goalie in the league to win the honor twice this season. 

It'll be a big weekend for the Tigers, who have a home-and-home against league-leading Quinnipiac, with a game Saturday in Connecticut and then home Sunday (4). Quinnipiac is 13-2-1 in the league, with the top offense and top defense (tied with Cornell) in the ECAC.

Six To Go

TigerBlog is tired of hearing about all the anticipation around Super Bowl commercials. 

So in case you want to debate which Super Bowl commercial you thought was the best, the answer is "none of them." They haven't been good in forever. They're overhyped, over-acted, silly and completely unfunny. 

Or maybe TigerBlog and anyone who was watching the Super Bowl in 1984 has been forever spoiled by this: 

Nothing will ever approach that commercial — especially since its prognostication was accurate. 

If you aren't sold on that one, how about this one, which is from 1997 and is the only one that even remotely has come close:

That's GI Joe and Barbie, who broke Ken's heart as they pulled away in their Nissan.  

As for the game itself, it was hardly a classic and in fact was one of the worst. It felt like a Sunday night regular season game in October — and not because it was a defensive struggle for the most part. TB doesn't mind a good defensive struggle. This was just dull, that's all, even when New England (briefly) tried to rally.  

Like the commercials that played during the broadcast, this one will hardly be remembered through the years.  

And with that, TigerBlog segues to Ivy League basketball. 

There are 16 Ivy League teams between the men and women, all of whom have six more Ivy games to play before the top four advance to Cornell for the league tournament.  

Of those 16 teams, only six currently are above .500. Another four are at .500. The women's field seems on the verge of being set. The men's field? 

Who knows.

If you look at the men's standings, Harvard and Yale are both 6-2. Brown is 1-7. The other five teams are bunched, with four at 4-4 and one at 3-5.

For the record, you have Princeton, Penn, Cornell and Dartmouth at 4-4, with Columbia the team at 3-5. And this is with only six games left. 

Princeton and Penn added another classic to their history Saturday in the Palestra, where the Quakers won 61-60 despite a late Tiger comeback. Incredibly, Princeton had beaten Penn 30 straight times prior to that between the men's and women's teams.

The 30th win in that streak came Friday night in Jadwin Gym, where Princeton's women trailed by two at the half before winning 69-50. Princeton's women are now 8-2 when tied or trailing at the half, which is the best record in Division I (according to TB's good friend Duncan Yin, Class of 1982; TB trusts that Duncan did not just make that up).

Princeton is in first place alone at 7-1, with Columbia and Harvard next at 6-2 each. Brown is in fourth at 5-3, two games up on Penn at 3-5. It's starting to look very much like those four will be in Ithaca next month. 

Back in the present, junior Olivia Hutcherson led Princeton with 19 points in the win Friday, along with seven rebounds and five steals. Hutcherson has made a huge jump this year, both by the numbers and by the eye test. 

Hutcherson played in nine games as a freshman and scored four points. She improved those numbers to 4.2 points and 4.3 rebounds last year, when she started 23 games. 

This year? She is up to 12.5 points and 6.0 rebounds. She shot 47.3 percent from the field last season and has improved that to 55.7 percent this season. 

Only five players in the Ivy League are currently shooting better than 50 percent. Nobody is ahead of Hutcherson. 

As TB said, though, you don't need to see the numbers to see how much she has elevated her game. You just have to pay attention. As much as anything, she's playing with such obvious confidence, and that's translating to her on-court success.

Next up for both Princeton teams are Cornell and Columbia this coming weekend. The men are home Friday at 7 against the Big Red and Saturday at 6 against Columbia. 

The women are at Columbia Friday at 6 (that game is on ESPNU) and then at Cornell Saturday at 5.  

Big Games

The Super Bowl comes up Sunday, as you may have heard. 

BrotherBlog is a longtime Seattle resident and reluctant sports fan, mostly by marriage. He gets extra credit for knowing not only that his local team had made it to the big game but also knowing who the opponent will be. 

If you haven't been paying attention, it'll be BB's Seattle Seahawks against the New England Patriots. TigerBlog asked his brother for his prediction for the game, and this is what he came back with:

"I don't know. It'll be what it'll be." 

Yeah, the upcoming hours and hours of pregame shows across multiple networks have nothing on BrotherBlog. There's genius in his analysis. Must be the lawyer in him. 

TigerBlog's preseason Super Bowl prediction was the Bills over the Lions. They should let those two teams play just to see if TB would have been correct. 

Given how bad his predictions were for the preseason, he's probably going to be way off on this one, but hey, here goes: Seattle 31, New England 21. 

TigerBlog will watch the game, even if it's not the game he's most looking forward to seeing this weekend. It's not even in the top two. 

Both of those have the words "Princeton" and "Penn" in them. And they both involve basketball. 

The Princeton women are home tonight at 7 against Penn. The men's game will be tomorrow at the Palestra. 

This weekend will see all Ivy League teams play once, against the team that has been their traditional travel partner. These games mark the start of the second trip through the 14-game round robin, which will end with four men's teams and four women's team on their way to Cornell for the league tournament. 

Who will those teams be? 

On the women's side, there are, not surprisingly, three teams who are already pretty much locked in — Princeton, Columbia and Harvard. The Tigers start the weekend alone in first place at 6-1, one game ahead of the 5-2 Lions and Crimson. 

A year ago, all three of them reached the NCAA tournament, something that was unprecedented in Ivy basketball history. This year, they're all looking to get back, with current NET rankings of 44 (Princeton), 59 (Columbia) and 66 (Harvard). 

The battle for fourth place has Brown at 4-3, one game ahead of Penn and Cornell. Princeton opened its Ivy season back on Jan. 3 with a 74-68 win over the Quakers at the Palestra in a game where Princeton led big early, trailed in the fourth quarter and then rallied to win it. 

Speaking of the Palestra, the Tiger and Quaker men will play there tomorrow at 2. 

If the women's race has some clear definition to it, the men's side is a complete free for all. Princeton is one game out of first place entering the weekend at 4-3, tied with Dartmouth, behind 5-2 Yale and Harvard. 

There are three teams one game back of the Tigers at 3-4 (Cornell, Columbia, Penn). That's seven teams separated by two games at the midway point of the league schedule. TB has no way of tracking how many times in league history that the league standings have had this many teams this close at this point, but he's willing to guess that the answer is "not a lot, if ever."

Princeton and Penn also opened their Ivy seasons against each other on the men's side, back on Jan. 5, when the Tigers came from 14 points down to go up by 14 and then hold on for a 78-76 victory.  

As you know, that win gave Princeton the lead in the all-time series for the first time ever. Entering the game tomorrow, it is now Princeton 127, Penn 126. 

Now is not the time to focus on historical context, though. The race to Ithaca is starts its second lap this weekend. 

It figures to be a crazy run to the finish.  

The Juggler

The Ivy League men's track and field Athlete of the Week this week was Joe Licata. 

This was the third straight week that a Tiger won the men's award. Last week it was Jackson Clarke, who had set an Ivy League record in the 200, while also running the second-best time in Division I this season. The week before was Greg Foster, after his Ivy record in the long jump, which also was second-best in Division I this season. 

So what did Licata do? 

Apparently, he was honored either for his personal best 64-0 in the shot put at the Penn Invite. Or, it's possible that he was honored for what he's doing in the photo. 

Which of those two things is more impressive? Well, obviously the shot put, but hey, the juggling is also ridiculous. 

That photo came from a video from Princeton superfan Pattie Friend, who finds time to work at an eating club checking in students on Sunday nights after attending essentially every event on campus she can. Pattie's husband Lloyd was a member of the Class of 1965.

By the way, if you want to see the greatest juggler of all time, go on YouTube and look up W.C. Fields. Hopefully you've heard of him, you little chickadees. 

*

There will be two Ivy League championships won in Jadwin Gym this weekend, in men's and women's fencing. 

The Ivy League round-robin event will be held at Princeton Saturday and Sunday. The women will compete in the morning both days, and the men will go in the afternoon.

The complete Princeton schedule, and ticket information, can be found HERE.

Princeton's men have won 18 Ivy fencing titles all time, including the past two years. The women have won 13, including three of the last four. 

*

The Winter Olympics begin this weekend in Milan, Italy. 

Princeton women's hockey will be once again represented by alums Sarah Fillier and Claire Thompson, who won a gold medal with Team Canada in the 2022 Games in Beijing. If history is any indicator, they'll add either a second gold or silver, as the overwhelming favorites to reach the final will be the Canadians and the Americans. 

It would be shocking if the final wasn't those two. In fact, this is the eighth time that women's hockey has been held at the Winter Olympics, and only once in the first seven has the final been someone other than the USA and Canada. That was in the third tournament, in 2006, when Canada won gold, Sweden had silver and the USA won silver. 

Former Princeton women's hockey player Kelly Cooke will again be an official at these Olympics. 

*

Continuing in the category of non-shocking hockey news, Princeton women's hockey's Uma Corniea was named the ECAC Goalie of the Week Award of the season. 

Corniea made a career-high 43 saves in the 6-1 win at Clarkson Saturday in a showdown for first place in the league. This came one night after a 30-save performance in a 2-0 shutout win over St. Lawrence. 

That's 73 saves and one goal allowed. That's a .986 save percentage and 0.50 goals-against average. You'll win a lot of games with those numbers. 

*

There will be home ice hockey this weekend for the Princeton men, against Yale tomorrow and Brown Saturday. Face-off both nights will be at 7. 

As TigerBlog wrote the other day, the Princeton men are in fifth place in the ECAC standings as they head into this weekend. 

Princeton has 30 points, five back of fourth-place Harvard. The top four teams in the league will get a first-round bye in the conference playoff and home ice for the quarterfinals. Teams 5-8 will host the first round; Princeton is eight points ahead of ninth-place Union at this point.  

Yale currently is in eighth place, one point ahead of Union. Brown is tied for 10th.  

*

In all there will be 28 events, including the ECAC women's tennis tournament at the Si Qin Family Indoor Tennis Center. At the same time in the same building, you can see Princeton and Penn in men's and women's squash. 

The complete schedule is HERE. 

At The Racket Center

There are, obviously, two people in this photo. 

One of them is among the most accomplished people in the history of Princeton Athletics. The other one is TigerBlog. 

Hints: 1) She never lost during her Princeton playing career, 2) she was Princeton's first female individual national champion, 3) she went on to become a doctor. 

The background of the photo is of the Si Qin Family Indoor Tennis Center at the Meadows Campus. If you haven't been there, put it high on your list of venues to check out. 

In addition to the indoor tennis courts, the building is also the new home of Princeton men's and women's squash. The viewing areas for both sports are spectacular. 

TigerBlog has spent a great deal of time in the building of late. He has added men's and women's tennis to the teams he covers. 

How has the experience been so far? It's reminded him, yet again, of what the best part of working at Princeton all these years has been. 

He doesn't really need to tell you, right? It's pretty straightforward. It's the opportunity to work with the Princeton athletes, who are some of the most impressive people you'll find anywhere. The opportunity to help them have a better experience has been his main motivation all this time. 

TB has always been a tennis fan. He rooted for John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova way back when, and he had the great opportunity to cover the 1984 US Open back in his newspaper days. The major tournaments are still among his favorite events to watch each year. 

He's seen bits and pieces of Princeton tennis through the years, just not to the extent that he has the last few weeks. College tennis matches, he's learning, are pretty fascinating. 

For starters, the rules are different. There is no deuce, just a winner-take-all point (receiver's choice on which side that point begins) to decide games that get to 40-all. It speeds things up considerably, but it also changes the dynamic of a game that gets to 30-all. 

There are three one-set doubles matches to start, and the team that wins two of them gets one team point. Then there are six best-of-three singles matches, all worth one team point each. 

The direction of the team match can swing back and forth quickly, as the player who won the first set easily falls behind in the second. Just when it seems like one team has it wrapped up, the other team come right back. 

TigerBlog has already seen some great matches. The doubles point between Princeton and St. John's women went to a tiebreaker in the deciding match before Tigers Eva Elbaz and Isabella Chhiv pulled it out, surviving three match points and falling behind 3-0 in the tiebreaker to win. 

The men's team fell to Liberty 4-3 after the deciding match stretched for nearly three hours between Princeton's Aleksandar Mitric and Liberty's David Ekpenyong. This one also reached a deciding tiebreaker. Yes, Princeton lost, but still, the effort that both players put in was inspiring. 

More than wins and losses, though, it's always very intriguing to see the team dynamics within individual sports and the close-knit support between the men's team and the women's team. As much as TB wants to feel that he has made an impact on the experience the athletes have, he also knows for a fact that they have made his experience so much better all these decades. 

When he first met with the women's team, he gave them a copy of his book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton. He also told them how women's athletics here started with their sport, tennis. 

And that leads him back to the woman in the picture. Her name is Wendy Zaharko, Class of 1974. She was a three-time national college squash champion who didn't compete in the national tournament as a sophomore. In her entire time at Princeton, she never lost so much as a game, let alone a match. 

Here was a quote of hers from the history book: 

“The women athletes were the ones who really brought the alums around to accept women at Princeton,” she says. “We were good ambassadors. I used to get letters from old alums, crazy letters. I got one from Michigan that was twenty-five typed pages. There’s no doubt that co-education changed and helped Princeton. When you add fifty percent of humanity to a great institution of higher learning, it can only make it an even better ‘best damn place of all.’ I was there to get an education, and there’s a lot of education to be gotten from sports.”

Wendy was at the racket center Sunday to watch women's squash and was then introduced to TigerBlog. Like many athletes at Princeton through the years, Wendy is one TB has written about extensively without ever having met. 

Until Sunday. 

It was great to actually say hi in person. She's a sort of celebrity to TigerBlog. 

And it was great to meet her at the racket center. 

If you've never been there, it's a great place to spend some time.  

Penultimate Weekend

TigerBlog was in the Bubble Sunday morning for a men's lacrosse scrimmage. 

One of the things about lacrosse that always makes TB smile is that after each game and the handshake line, you'll immediately see hugs and catch-ups from all the players on both teams who either played with or against each other in high school or club growing up. It's a staple of every game. 

You can see an example of this yourself. 

As for the Bubble, if you don't know, it sits over Powers Field from the end of the football season through the spring. 

You can ask anyone who has ever been inside, and you'll get the same statement. When you are inside the Bubble, you cannot believe you are on the football field in the stadium. You'll get a 100 percent rate of response. 

As ridiculous as it seems, the first Division I lacrosse games were played this past weekend. It was still January. 

Perhaps because of the audacity of scheduling games outdoors in the Northeast in January, the weather was more conducive to sled dog racing than lacrosse. Remember when the lacrosse season didn't start until March 1? 

If you're wondering, the Princeton men open their season a week from Saturday at home against Penn State. The Princeton women open their season the following Saturday at Loyola, on the same day the men are at Maryland. 

Both teams are highly ranked heading into 2026. The men, in fact, are either No. 2 or No. 3 in every preseason poll, while the women are as high as No. 5. 

The Princeton men's lacrosse season opener starts a few hours before the last game of the Princeton women's hockey team's regular season finale. That means that there are only four games left before the ECAC tournament begins.

The Tigers enter the penultimate (TB loves that word for some strange reason) weekend of the regular season in first place in the league standings with 41 points, three ahead of second-place Clarkson. 

TB will get back to Princeton Hockey in a moment. First, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: 

The earliest known use of the word "penultimate" is in the early 1500s. OED's earliest evidence for "penultimate" is from 1529, in a letter by Stephen Gardiner, theologian, administrator, and bishop of Winchester.

That's a long time ago. 

Back at hockey, the Princeton men are home this coming Friday against Yale and Saturday against Brown, both at 7. The ECAC men's race still has four weekends left in the regular season, and Princeton is currently in fifth place, five points back of fourth-place Harvard. 

The top four teams for both the men and women get a first-round bye and the host role for the quarterfinals in the ECAC tournament. 

The Princeton women swept St. Lawrence (2-0) and Clarkson (6-1) this past weekend on the road. Had Clarkson defeated Princeton, then Princeton would be in second place now, not first. 

Princeton scored two minutes into the game and three times in the first 16 minutes, including two that came shorthanded. It was 5-0 Tigers after two periods and then 6-0 midway through the third before Clarkson got on the board. 

Once again it was a very big weekend for Tiger goalie Uma Corniea, who made a career-high 43 saves against Clarkson, one night after shutting out St. Lawrence with 30 saves. That's 73 saves and one goal allowed. 

That's very, very, very, very good. Four very's.   

It's a very, very, very long ride back from the St. Lawrence and Clarkson road trip. It's a very, very long ride on the Dartmouth/Harvard road trip that Princeton will now have to make this weekend. 

That's one fewer "very."

Princeton will then host Yale and Brown to end the regular season. 

The Division I NPI ratings (the ones that determine the NCAA tournament field) have five ECAC teams in the top 12, including Princeton at No. 8. The Tigers are ranked seventh in this week's USCHO.com poll. 

Somehow, the women's hockey season is winding down. Or, is that just beginning? 

It'll definitely extend beyond the regular season. After that? It could be a very exciting rest of the winter.