Darin Yrigoyen?

Are you serious?

TigerBlog received the typical email he gets prior to an event for one of the teams he covers, asking for a roster and basic team information and needs. Of course, this one was different than any he's ever gotten before. 

The sender was the women's tennis contact at Florida International, where Princeton will play Saturday, before playing at Florida Atlantic Sunday. 

If this was all normal, then why did TB say "are you serious?" Well, that's because the contact at FIU is Darin Yrigoyen. 

If you don't recognize the last name, Darin's father is the great Chuck Yrigoyen, one-time member of the Princeton Office of Athletic Communications and long-time Associate Commissioner at the Ivy League Office. He's also one of the all-time greats in Jadwin Gym lunchtime basketball history and would be a first-ballot Hall-of-Fame, if such a thing existed. 

TB has always said that he'd feel old when the children of athletes whom he covered at Princeton would come to compete here as well, and that's something that's happened quite a few times. Darin Yrigoyen though? TB remembers when he was born, for crying out loud. 

Now he feels old. 

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The Olympic gold medal game in women's hockey will be held today at 1:10 pm Eastern time between the United States and Canada. This isn't exactly the Miracle on Ice; it's more the Inevitable on Ice. 

Maybe in four years, they can have these two play a best-of-seven for the gold and then have everyone else play for the bronze?

Princeton is represented by two players on the Canadian team — Sarah Fillier and Claire Thompson — both of whom already own gold medals from four years ago. The United States team is a heavy favorite this time around, having already taken down Canada 5-0 earlier in the tournament. 

Canada has won five of the previous seven gold medals since women's hockey was added in 1998. The other two belong to the USA. 

Canada won the 2022 gold medal game 3-2 in Beijing.  

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The Ivy League women's swimming and diving championships began yesterday and will run through Saturday at Brown. 

Princeton will be going for its fourth straight championship and 27th overall, which would rank third among Ivy League women's programs all-time, behind the 28 of Princeton field hockey and Harvard women's squash. 

Princeton went 7-0 in the dual meet portion of its Ivy League schedule, though the official champion wil be the winner of the meet in Rhode Island this weekend.  

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By the way, speaking of the Winter Olympics, you know where the next ones will be in 2030? The French Alps, with most of the events about a three or four hour drive from where the current ones are being held. 

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Is .611 a good batting average? 

Actually, a better question might be is .526 a good batting average? That's where Princeton's Graciela Dominguez stood after the opening weekend in Florida, where the Tigers went 4-1. 

Of course that's a great number to put up. It also puts Dominguez in third place on her own team, behind Braeden Hale (she of the .611) and Karis Ford (.545). Hale, a first-team All-Ivy League selection last year as a freshman, ranks seventh in Division I in batting average after the first weekend. 

Mia Valenzuela was named Ivy Rookie of the Week after having at least one hit in all five games, with two home runs and two doubles. Valenzuela came to Princeton from Houston's St. Agnes Academy, which is also the Tigers. In fact, Valenzuela won the school's Tiger Pride Award a year ago. 

Next up for the Tigers (the ones from Princeton) is a weekend in Chapel Hill, N.C., with five more games on the schedule, beginning tomorrow with North Carolina Central and Appalachian State, with another App State Saturday, as well as a game against the host Tar Heels, and finishing up Sunday morning against, of all teams, Rider. 

Princeton and Rider are separated by about eight miles or so, and they will play on a field about 500 miles from either campus. 

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The baseball team will also be in North Carolina this weekend, and next, for that matter. 

Princeton will open its season with three games this weekend at North Carolina State and then be back next weekend for four more at Duke. The weekend after that? There's a trip to South Carolina to start its spring break portion of the schedule.  

ECAC Champs II

In TigerBlog's piece yesterday about the women's hockey team's ECAC regular-season championship, he forgot to mention one item. 

While Princeton and Yale tied for the ECAC title, neither won the Ivy League championship. That went to Cornell, who finished with 21 points, to 20 for Yale and 18 for Princeton. 

The ECAC regular season has 22 games for each team, with one home and one away against the other 11 league teams. Of those 22 games, though, the Ivy vs. Ivy games count in the Ivy standings, so those 10 games are a subset of the ECAC ones. 

As such, you can have co-champs in the ECAC who do not win the Ivy League. It's a pretty interesting anomaly, and you know how TigerBlog loves a good anomaly. 

The ECAC Hockey League, by the way, isn't the same entity as the ECAC. Confusing, right? 

The ECAC itself dates back to 1938, when Asa S. Bushnell (Princeton Class of 1921, by the way) became the first commissioner. Today the ECAC is an extension of Northeast Division I, II and III schools, pretty much all of whom are in other primary leagues (such as the Ivy League, for instance). 

The ECAC, according to its mission statement, "exists to enhance the experience of student-athletes participating in intercollegiate athletics, and provide great value for universities and colleges, by sponsoring championships, leagues, bowl games, tournaments and other competitions throughout the Northeast."

One of the championships that the ECAC sponsors is Division I tennis, both for men and women. Those two tournaments — which featured all eight Ivy League teams and nobody else — were held the last two weekends at the Si Qin Family Indoor Tennis Center at Princeton. 

The women's event saw Princeton go 2-1 two weeks ago. This past weekend, it was the men's turn. 

The final matched Princeton and Columbia Sunday. Guess what? It was one of the best Princeton events TigerBlog has seen in a long time.

Princeton and Columbia both won their first two matches by 4-0 counts, setting up a championship match between the two top seeds. Columbia was ranked 12th nationally; Princeton was on the cusp of the national rankings. 

Throw in that Princeton had already come close to beating two other ranked teams (Arizona State, North Carolina State) and lost 4-3. And throw in that Princeton had lost 14 straight to Columbia.  

The match started at 3:30. It was nearly 7:30 when it ended. Final score: Princeton 4, Columbia 3. 

It was crazy. It was wildly intense. Every point seemed to make a big difference. It was everything you could have asked from a sporting event.  

If you don't know how college tennis matches work, there are three doubles matches to start off, and whichever team wins two gets a team point. Then there are six singles matches, worth one point each as well. It takes four points to get a team to win. 

There are other differences from what you see during Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. For one thing, if a game gets to 40-40, then the next point wins. And then for another, it's hardly quiet during play. Spectators. Players. Teammates. The sound bounces everywhere, always. It turns the whole event into something of a party atmosphere.

The biggest subplot of Sunday's match came at first singles, where Columbia's Michael Zheng and Princeton's Paul Inchauspe met. It was a rematch of the NCAA singles tournament semifinal last fall, when Zheng defeated Inchauspe in three sets on his way to his second-straight individual national championship. In addition, Zheng also happened to win a match in the Australian Open main draw a month ago. 

The match between them Sunday was a great one. It was incredible shot-making, by both players. Inchauspe won the first set. Zheng won the second. If you were waiting for Inchauspe to fold, well, you're still waiting — he won the third set and the match. 

Princeton had won the doubles point. Aleksandar Mitric gave Princeton a win at No. 6. Columbia won at No. 2, No. 4 and No. 5. All were back-and-forth matches that only made the drama build and flip almost game-by-game. 

And so it was 3-3 as the third set at No. 3 started. The crowd was big and very into it. The building was loud. Very loud. 

The match had Princeton's Landon Ardila against Columbia's Sachin Palta, the No. 37 player in the most recent ITA singles rankings. It didn't matter. Ardila played with a visible combination of poise and confidence, and he rolled through the set 6-1, touching off a celebration worthy of the moment. 

Have the Tigers seen the last of the Lions? Hardly. The teams meet again in New York City on April 12, with an Ivy League championship possibly at stake that day. 

Can it live up to what the teams did Sunday? If it does, then that's going to be an incredible scene.  

No Judgement

You know what TigerBlog hates (besides winter)?

Sports that are judged. You're just begging for reputational biases or, even worse, outright cheating, all of which lends itself to questionable outcomes. 

Take the side-by-side bumpy-hill skiing, or whatever it's called. Two skiers race down a hill, stopping along the way to twirl and somersault and a bunch of other things that slow them down, eventually getting to the finish line — and then you wait for the judges to decide who won. 

When TB watched this event (he thinks it's called "dual moguls") the other day, he couldn't help but think of the words of one of the greatest American authors of all time: 

Then those things ran about with big bumps, jumps and kicks and with hops and big thumps and all kinds of bad tricks.  

Why not just make the tricks the same for all the skiers and then whoever gets to the bottom first after having done all of those tricks wins? Instead, the woman who won the gold medal finished well behind the silver medalist, but the judges awarded her first by one point. 

Bonus points, by the way, to those who correctly identified the quote, which TB will tell you at the end.  

You know what event TB was awed by? Skeleton. 

Basically, you're on a sled similar to the one that everyone had as a kid, only you're flying down an icy course at speeds that approach 80 miles per hour, with winding turns and 180 degree direction changes, not to mention your face a fraction of an inch from the track. TB wants to try it, and by that he means "no possible way would he ever do that." 

Janine Flock was the women's gold medalist and one of the feel-good stories of the Winter Olympics. The 36-year-old Austrian was in her fourth Olympics without ever having won a medal, finishing fourth in 2018. 

Lucky for her nobody came along after she crossed the finish line to tell her that someone who went slower won the gold because of subjective judging. 

Speaking of things that happened on ice this weekend, how about the end of the ECAC women's hockey regular season? That was as wild as almost anything the Olympics has had so far. 

Princeton went into the regular season assured of one thing — a first-round playoff bye and home ice for the quarterfinals (which, he supposes, is actually two things). How would it all play out? 

It started Friday night, when Princeton hosted Yale, where a win would have clinched the outright title. Instead, the Bulldogs won 2-0, vaulting them over Princeton and into first place with one game to go. 

Where did that leave the standings? Yale now had 45 points, followed by Princeton with 44 and Quinnipiac at 43. With three points for a regulation win, two for an overtime win, one for an overtime loss and zero for a regulation loss, the permutations were many. 

Saturday night saw Brown at Princeton and Yale at Quinnipiac. The Princeton-Brown game ended first, when Issy Wunder scored in overtime after the Bears had tied the game with 1:30 to play in regulation. This was all after Wunder had given Princeton a 2-1 lead with eight minutes to go.

The OT win left Princeton with 46 points, which meant Yale would win the outright championship with a regulation win, something that seemed inevitable with a 3-1 Bulldog lead with less than two minutes to go. 

And then? Shockingly, Quinnipiac scored two empty-net goals 38 seconds apart and then won it in overtime. Shocking indeed. 

When it all settled, Yale earned one point for its OT loss, making it a 46-46 tie for the championship, with Quinnipiac one point back at 45. For Princeton, its first ECAC regular season title came in the first year for head coach Courtney Kessel.

Yale earned the No. 1 seed over Princeton through the tiebreakers. Princeton will be the No. 2 seed, giving the Tigers this weekend off while its opponent is determined. The quarterfinals will be the following weekend, and the league's semifinals and final will be in Lake Placid March 6-7.

Oh, and extra credit goes to those who knew that quote was from "The Cat In The Hat." 

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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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).

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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. 

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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.