Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween.

TigerBlog used to love Halloween. His job was always to answer the door and give out the candy. It would be one for each kid who came by and two for him.

Now? His kids are grown, he's given up sugar and carbs and he's more excited about his honey crisp apples than he is about mini-Kit Kats.

Well, at least he's trying to convince himself of that.

TB did the first of his weekly podcasts with Princeton women's basketball coach Carla Berube, who has three children six and younger. Today is a big day for them.

Of course, the first question was about costumes. You'll have to listen to hear what they're going as.

Berube's first game as Princeton head coach is Tuesday night, when Princeton hosts Rider at Jadwin. Tip off is at 7.

This is the senior year for Bella Alarie, which all by itself means that any chance to see the Tigers is one not to let get away.

Next up after Rider will be a road trip to Geroge Washington, whose head coach, Jen Rizzotti, was a college teammate of Berube's at UConn.

Princeton is the preseason co-No. 1 choice in the Ivy League, tied with Penn in the preseason poll. The Tigers and Quakers open their conference schedules against each other, though that game - on Jan. 11 at the Palestra - is more than two months away.

You have to go through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's before you get to that game.

In the meantime, much more immediately, the first Ivy League championships of the 2019-20 academic year will definitely be crowned tomorrow. By the end of the weekend, there could be Ivy champs in three sports.

The Ivy League Heptagonal men's and women's cross country championships will be held at Van Cortlandt Park in New York City tomorrow. The women's race is at 11, followed by the men at noon.

TigerBlog almost never misses Heps, but he's going to have to to this time. Princeton football is at Cornell tomorrow night (6, ESPNU), and he's not confident that he could go from Heps to Ithaca in enough time.

The Princeton men have won two straight Heps titles and nine of the last 13. The Tigers have built on that cross country win the last two years to win back-to-back Heps "Triple Crowns" after taking the indoor and outdoor track and field titles as well, and the current streak of overall Heps events Princeton has won is at eight, including indoor and outdoor track and field two years ago.

The current Tiger are ranked 25th nationally (Northern Arizona is a unanimous No. 1 in the poll). No other Ivy team is ranked, though Harvard is receiving votes.

As for the women, Princeton is receiving votes, while Columbia and Penn are both ranked. In both cases, rankings won't matter much once the racing starts tomorrow.

The other potential Ivy League championship that can be won this weekend is in field hockey.

Princeton won its big showdown with Harvard last weekend 3-2, rallying for two second-half goals to pull it out. The win improved Princeton to 5-0 in the league while Harvard is now 4-1.

Behind Harvard are the two teams Princeton still has to play, Cornell and Penn, both at 3-2, as is Columbia, whom Harvard still has to play.

Should the Tigers win one of their last two, then they'll clinch at least a share of the league championship and would also clinch the league's automatic NCAA tournament bid. The first chance is this Sunday, at home against Cornell, at noon.

This weekend is also a nice "crossover season" weekend. There's a soccer doubleheader against Cornell (women at 1, men at 4) Saturday at home, and it's also opening weekend for women's swimming, wrestling and men's hockey.

The men's hockey team opens its season at St. Cloud with two games against the No. 16 team in the country. The women, who opened their ECAC season by defeating Quinnipiac Tuesday night and are already 3-0, are at Colgate and Cornell.

And, of course, there's the football game at Cornell and the women's volleyball match at Cornell, also tomorrow. Princeton and Cornell are in a three-way tie with Yale for first with three weekends left.

So yes, this is a pretty busy weekend coming up.

But first, it's Halloween.

You can have TigerBlog's candy. Much as it pains him to say that.