The Ice Cream, Like The Music, Will Live Forever

If you didn't have your glasses on or just glanced quickly, it might have been a fairly confusing headline.

The first word was "Springsteen." The last word was "died." So yeah, it did require a little shaking of the head and concentration.

As it turned out, the entire headline was "Springsteen favorite: Founder of Jersey Freeze Has Died."

The story, in the Asbury Park Press, was about the death of Carlton Blackmore, not about the legendary rocker. Blackmore was 99, so he had a pretty good run.

His business is still going strong, there on Route 9, across the street from the Freehold Mall, near Freehold Raceway.

Jersey Freeze goes back to 1952. TigerBlog doesn't go back quite that far, but he and Jersey Freeze go back to his earliest days.

Jersey Freeze has lasted through four generations of his family, as his grandparents took him there, his parents took him there, he took himself there and he's taken his children there.

TigerBlog's favorite when he was a kid was the chocolate brownie sundae. He actually went there as a high school senior, in his couldn't-be-cooler 1977 Dodge Diplomat, and spilled just such a sundae all over a young lady he had taken there.

Since then, when he's there, he'll usually go with either the soft ice cream in a cup or a milk shake. He's still not over spilling the sundae.

TigerBlog isn't sure he ever met Mr. Blackmore. He did help keep him business all these years as best he could.

Much like Springsteen himself, Mr. Blackmore has created something that will endure. The ice cream, like the music, will live forever.

TigerBlog has always had the theory that weather should not impact consumption of two things. Put simply, it's never too cold for ice cream or too hot for soup.

Around these parts, it's still fall on the calendar, but it's now winter on the sports schedule.

The final event of the fall season was Friday night, when the women's volleyball team played at BYU in the NCAA tournament. The Tigers didn't win, but they did, as Pete Carril always would say, give a good account of themselves.

Princeton definitely pushed the heavily favored Cougars, falling 3-0 but with scores of 25-22, 25-15, 25-23.

If you want to see how the trip went for Princeton, there are some good videos on the women's volleyball page on goprincetontigers.com. Click HERE to see them.

Before letting volleyball season go, TigerBlog would like to mention two things:

1) his colleague Craig Sachson wrote a great guest blog Friday about head coach Sabrina King and 2) that was a great season that the Tigers just put together. They went wire-to-wire in the Ivy League, won the big matches they needed to, closed it out in the end in dramatic fashion with the win over Cornell after trailing 5-0 in the fifth and then did a really solid job in the NCAA tournament.

So congratulations to Princeton women's volleyball. And with a very young team and one of Princeton's best coaches, the future looks pretty good.

And TigerBlog isn't just saying that because Sabrina gave him one of those great long-sleeve "Princeton Volley" orange t-shirts.

The men's hockey team was the only team that was home this past weekend, which is a fairly rare occurrence around here.

Princeton started its season at 0-6-1 but is now 3-1-0 in its last four, after sweeping Bemidji State last weekend in Minnesota and now splitting at home with Union and RPI this past weekend.

Princeton was done in by a bad second period against Union Friday night, when the Dutchmen score five of their goals in the 7-3 win. The seventh goal, by the way, came as time expired.

It looked like it was heading to a lost weekend for the Tigers when they trailed RPI 4-1 midway through the second period. Actually, it wasn't looking great when it was 2-0 RPI less than three minutes into the game.

It was still 5-3 RPI until David Hallisey made it a one-goal game with 5:39 left and then Ryan Kuffner tied it with just 46 seconds left.

The game-winner in OT was originally credited to Josh Teves but instead was changed to Jackson Cressey, but it hardly mattered who was the one who scored it. All that mattered was that Princeton had a win and some momentum.

The RPI game featured 11 goals, of which eight were power-play goals, including the one in overtime. For Princeton it was the first time it had won a game while allowing at least five goals since a 6-5 win over Cornell in the 1999 ECAC playoffs.

Also for Princeton, Max Veronneau scored four goals this weekend after not having any for the year before that. His four goals and three assists tied him for the national lead in points for this weekend.

Next up for the Tigers will be a home-and-home this weekend with Quinnipiac, at Baker Rink Friday and in Connecticut Saturday.

And that's your Monday.

Volleyball. Hockey.

And ice cream. Really, really good ice cream.

And if she's out there reading this, TigerBlog is sorry he spilled the sundae on you.