TigerBlog was watching the Georgia-Oklahoma Men's College World Series game last night while he was reading a story about how the Uruguayan team had major travel issues in getting into the United States before its World Cup opener.
Uruguay, who was training in Cancun, didn't get to fly to Miami for Game 1 (against Saudi Arabia) until 24 hours before kickoff due to paperwork issues with the plane it was using. After reading that, TB saw on the ESPN crawl that Uruguay was down 1-0 in the 79th minute.
Figuring he'd check in to see if the team showed any obvious sign of being affected by the late arrival, TB switched over to see the end of the soccer game. It was still 1-0 Saudi Arabia when he did; it was 1-1 within five seconds of when he started watching. Actually, it might have been less than five seconds.
At first, TB thought it was a replay from earlier, but nope. He just timed it well.
The game was the opposite of what you might have expected. Uruguay and Saudi Arabia had five shots each in the first half, including the Saudi goal in the 41st minute. In the second? Would Uruguay fold? Well, shots were 23-2 in favor of Uruguay, but the game ended in a 1-1 tie.
There are 48 countries in this expanded World Cup field. There are 47 that TB had heard of before — the lone exception is Cape Verde, who had a shocking 0-0 tie with Spain yesterday. TB would not have been able to identify Cape Verde as a country off the African coast near the Canary Islands, even though he's been to the Canary Islands.
The World Cup is part of a very busy sports June in this country. The NBA Finals just concluded, with, as you may have heard, a championship for the New York Knicks.
Also, the Stanley Cup playoffs ended Sunday night, one night after the Knicks took care of the Spurs. This time, it was the Carolina Hurricanes who closed out the final series, beating Vegas 3-0 to lift the Cup four games to two.
Among the Hurricanes who get to have their names etched on the Stanley Cup will be Eric Robinson, who was the captain of Princeton's 2018 ECAC championship team. Robinson has established himself as a very steady, consistent NHL veteran, and the game Sunday night ended with him on the ice.
Oh, and all of this happened on his 31st birthday. That's not a bad way to celebrate.
Pretty good birthday present for Robby pic.twitter.com/5ZUI7dvdB0
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) June 15, 2026
Robinson joins George Parros (Anaheim Ducks in 2007) and Kevin Westgarth (Los Angeles Kings in (2012) as Princeton alums who have won the Stanley Cup as players. Jeff Halpern has won two as an assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
There's another short list that Robinson has joined as well, one that includes six others, one of whom is Parros. Any guesses?
Hint - think about where Princeton is. TB will give you until the end.
Robinson has played in 455 career NHL games, with 66 goals and 75 assists. Like TB said, he's a very solid veteran winger.
The last time TB mentioned Robinson here was this past January, when he recalled how Robinson had scored the tying goal just ahead of the final horn in Game 2 of the 2017 ECAC tournament opening round. Princeton would then score in overtime to tie the series and then win Game 3 to advance.
This is what TB wrote the following Monday:
There was Game 2 Saturday night, which was one of the very best Princeton athletic events TigerBlog has ever seen. Yes, he knows how many games that's taking into account. Yes, he's not prone to hyberbole. This was a great game, start to finish.
Now nine years later, TB stands by that. If you were there, you agree with him. It was crazy. So was Robinson's tying goal, an incredible individual effort that saw him come out of seemingly nowhere to just beat the clock.
And now he's a Stanley Cup champion. TB sends his congrats.
And the answer: Robinson became the seventh New Jersey high school hockey player to win the Stanley Cup. Robinson grew up in Bellmawr, outside of Philadelphia, and went to Gloucester Catholic. Parros grew up in Randolph in North Jersey and went to the Delbarton School.
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