Congratulations Kampy

TigerBlog saw two extraordinary photo galleries this week.

First, there was the Mars Rover "Perseverance." It was launched last July and then landed this week. 

Did you see the pictures from the surface of Mars? They were incredible.

That's Mars, everyone. 

Of course people over here on this planet have wondered if there is life on Mars. The rover, which apparently is the size of an average SUV, will attempt to answer that question.

It's not about finding little green Martians, like Bugs Bunny did. It's about seeing if there are now microbes on the planet, or if there is evidence that at one time there was.

It's all pretty amazing.

If you were looking for beautiful pictures from your home planet, there was the NHL's outdoor rink set up at Lake Tahoe.

How's that look?

TB isn't the only one who noticed. Actually, anyone who saw it had to be awed by the sights, and the television broadcast did a great job of showcasing the beauty that was everywhere.

Another person who noticed was Shelley Szwast, Princeton's photographer for men's and women's hockey and lacrosse. She tweeted this:

Can someone teleport me to Lake Tahoe? I’ll bring the camera. 😍 https://t.co/auJvO2vqpy

— Split Second Photo (@Split2ndPhoto) February 20, 2021

 Every outdoor NHL event has been special and unique in their own ways. They have been played in huge football stadiums, allowing the largest crowds the NHL has ever seen to attend the games. 

The first outdoor NHL game was played in 2003, when the Montreal Canadians played at Edmonton in the CFL stadium there. The event, played in below zero temperatures, drew 57,167.

The largest crowd ever to watch a hockey game was 104,173 at the Big House at the University of Michigan, both for a game between the Wolverines and Michigan State in 2010 and then four years later between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings.

The games this weekend in Lake Tahoe had no stands. What they did have were unbelievable views of the lake and the snow-capped mountains behind it, punctuated by blue skies that just added to the colors. 

Of course, it may have been too blue and too beautiful, since the first game (between Colorado and Vegas) had to be stopped and pushed back until the sun went down. In the end, there would be a nine-hour break before the game was resumed, but hey, it was still a gorgeous setting.

Also, TB didn't realize that Lake Tahoe is only five miles away from Squaw Valley, California, which hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics.

And while the subject is hockey, how about some congratulations to Princeton alum Jeff Kampersal?

Kampersal, a 1992 Princeton grad, is in his fourth year as the head coach of the women's hockey team at Penn State. He inherited a team that went 9-21-3 the year before he arrived.

Now? The Nittany Lions are 14-1-2 and ranked eighth nationally.

Beyond that, Penn State clinched its first College Hockey America regular-season championship this weekend.

Kampersal spent 21 years as the head women's hockey coach at Princeton, winning the ECAC Coach of the Year award three times. He has a career record of 377-306-87, and his 377 wins rank sixth all-time in women's hockey history.

He was also the first Princeton hockey player TB ever wrote about. That dates back to when Kampersal was a player himself for the Tigers, and Kurt Kehl, then in charge of the Office of Athletic Communications, asked TB to write a story about Kampersal for the football game program.

As TB recalls, he was paid for the story in food, as in lunch. 

Kampersals' replacement at Princeton was his long-time assistant Cara Morey, herself a great player at Brown. Morey led Princeton to its first ECAC tournament championship a year ago, when the Tigers went 26-6-1 and knocked off the top-ranked team in the country (Cornell) to win that ECAC title. 

Princeton was on a big roll heading into the NCAA tournament before it was postponed. 

Kampersal, of course, will always be a huge part of Princeton women's hockey history. And, in his next stop, he's apparently building something big with the Nittany Lions - something that another former Princeton hockey coach, Guy Gadowsky, has done on the men's side.

So congratulations to Jeff Kampersal on his first conference title at Penn State, and his team's first conference title for that matter. 

He's always been one of the nice guys.