The Spartan Shield

Sam Cila has a way of getting your attention.

Maybe it's the direct, pull-no-punches, nothing-sugar-coated way he speaks. Maybe it's the deep, powerful voice, the one that intimidates and challenges at the same time. Maybe it's the way he doesn't want to hear what you might think he wants to hear and instead turns that back around on you, challenging you to actually dig deep and find the right answer.

Maybe it's the tattoos that he has on both arms, sticking out from under his shirt, the one that says "The Program," with the circular logo with a warrior inside.

Or maybe it's just the tattoos on his left arm. They're the ones that end at the stump, where his hand used to be, before he was injured in Iraq more than a decade ago, before he had 40 surgeries on his injuries, before he had to have the hand amputated.

Or maybe it's what he says.

He talks about his injuries openly, and yet there's not one piece of him that wants sympathy. In fact, that would probably just anger him.

He talks about the three most difficult things he's had to do in his life: 1) tell his wife and children that he was going to war, 2) have a friend and teammate die in his arms in war, and 3) tell the doctor that finally it was time to amputate his hand.

This is one tough man, and there is not one ounce of BS anywhere in his body. So yes, when he talks, he gets your attention.

Early yesterday morning - before the sun came up, at 4:40 a.m. - Sam Cila was on the pool deck of Dillon Gym. The people he was talking to at this moment were the members of the Princeton men's lacrosse team. TigerBlog was able to observe - and learn.

The program - officially called "The Program" - is designed to build teamwork and leadership and accountability. It's a challenging program, and it was from the first moment Monday when Cila lined the Tigers up on the end line on Sherrerd Field.

Oh, and a little more about Sam Cila. He was a high school wrestler. He has a wife and two children. He had a career with the Department of Corrections before 9/11, when he decided that he would enlist. If it's good enough for someone else to fight, he said, then it was good enough for him.

He went to Iraq in the late summer of 2004. Nearly a year later, on of all days July 4, 2005, Cila was almost directly on top of an IED when it was detonated, ripping into his left side.

Today his biggest regret appears to be that he could not continue his military career and finish the fight he signed up to fight. He owns a CrossFit gym and has put his other time to good use, what with his experience climbing some of the highest mountains in the world and doing triathlons on the international level.

And he does "The Program."

Princeton's first day of practice was Monday, but instead of lacrosse sticks and helmets, the Tigers got a lot of running Monday evening and a lot of swimming Tuesday morning.

Cila set the tone early Monday and it stayed that way until the very end. TigerBlog watched it, and he saw the evolution, as the team figured out that Cila's version of a straight line and most people's version of a straight line weren't exactly the same thing. By the end of "The Program," they understood.

They also understood what it meant to be a team, what their responsibility was as a teammate, how they needed to be strong and confident in their individual selves at the same time. It was pretty fascinating to watch.

The two days ended with a drill that saw the players wear their gray Princeton lacrosse sweatshirts, swim out into the pool, take the sweatshirts off, hold them up in the air, trade them with a teammate and then put the other one on. All while treading water.

At the end, Cila gives an award to the one member of the team who has done the best. It's a cherished award, one that is well-earned in every way.

And what is it? It's a gray t-shirt. It has the logo, but it's not a circle. It's a shield, Cila says, the Spartant shield.

And why?

Spartan soldiers were sent into battle with a shield and a spear. To lose the spear was acceptable. To lose the shield was not, since it exposed not only you but also your fellow soldiers.

The winner was Jack O'Brien, a junior face-off man.

TigerBlog might not have wanted to get up at 4 am yesterday, but he's glad he did. He's glad he got to see "The Program," and to meet the man who was running it.

It'll be awhile before TB forgets Sam Cila. He's pretty sure the Princeton men's lacrosse players feel the same way.

Sam Cila is heroic, even if he doesn't think he did anything special - and TB believes that his modesty is genuine. And here he was, someone who had given so much of himself in a war that he didn't have to go fight but chose to, talking to a group of young athletes who hopefully will never have to experience what he did.

Pinning The Groundhog

TigerBlog understands that not every movie made is trying to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. In that vein, he's never understood the complete disdain so many people have for the movie "Groundhog Day."

TB saw it in the movies when it came out in 1993, and he's seen it about a thousand times since. It's a perfectly harmless, funny, at times charming, certainly inoffensive movie, and yet there are so many people who flat out hate it.

As an aside, TigerBlog was always confused as a kid by Groundhog Day, as six weeks after Feb. 2 takes you to March 16 (or March 15 in a leap year), which is still winter. He never quite understood the whole "six more weeks of winter" thing. Shouldn't it be more like 10 more weeks of winter if the point is that figuratively speaking spring will be late to arrive?

Hey, if the weather wants to be like it is on this Groundhog Day, TigerBlog would be fine with maybe 10 more weeks of winter.

Ah, but maybe not. Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this morning, forecasting an early spring.

And TB was crushed to learn the whole thing is a sham, at least according to a story he read:
The ceremony is largely that: Phil's prediction is determined ahead of time by the Inner Circle, a group who dons top hats and tuxedos and decides in advance what the groundhog will predict.

Still, what could be better than Groundhog Day, a small-town tradition that has such a great little Americana feel to it. Something wholesome, something that hasn't been ruined by commercialism or lack of civility or any of the other ills of contemporary society.

As Phil Connors said: This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.

Sound familiar? TigerBlog has written that before on Groundhog's Day. And before that. And before that.

You  know, like the movie. Get it? Subtle, yes.

Before the movie came out, Groundhog Dog was all about anticipating spring. Since then, it's become a reference to something that happens over and over and over - you know, like the way Phil kept living the same day over and over. Maybe that's the biggest tribute to the movie, the way it changed an entire meaning of something.

Speaking of things that happened over and over and over, there was the not-so-recent history of the Princeton-Penn wrestling rivalry. Year after year, Princeton woke up, hear Sonny and Cher on the radio, and relived the same outcome - a Penn win.

This went on for 24 straight matches. Then this past Saturday rolled around, when Princeton hosted Penn at Dillon Gym, looking to snap that 24-match losing streak.

Princeton wrestling has made meteoric strides forward under head coach Chris Ayres, and his assistants - Sean Gray, Joe Dubuque and Nick Heflin.

TigerBlog has gotten closer to the wrestling program of late, literally, as the OAC has relocated down to E level of Jadwin, next to the wrestling room. Now TB sees the wrestling coaches more than he does the people back up on the balcony.

TigerBlog will say this about his new neighbors - sometimes they play their music a little loudly. But that's okay.

And they're certainly a friendly group. It's not hard to see why they have such appeal to recruits. They scream "you'd love to be part of this" in basically everything they do.

The results certainly back that up.

Princeton has gone from a wrestling afterthought to a legitimate player on the national scene. There were five wrestlers - a program record - who qualified for the NCAA championships last year.

The Tigers have been even better this year, with strong showings all season that lead up to the Ivy opener against the Quakers. And that little 24-year streak to take care of.

Penn led 15-9 with three matches left, but a major decision from Brett Harner and a decision from Ray O'Donnell made it  16-15 Tigers heading into the final match. This put it all on the 125-pound shoulders of Pat D'Arcy, a freshman from South Jersey who was a state champion a year ago at Holy Spirit High School.

D'Arcy got a takedown in the first and then got one escape to his opponent's two, making it 3-2 D'Arcy and 19-15 Princeton. Final. End of losing streak.

So Princeton is now 1-0 in the league. There's the little matter of Cornell, who like Princeton is also 1-0. Those two, early on, are the lone league unbeatens.

Of course, unbeaten Cornell is nothing new. The Big Red hasn't lost an Ivy match since 2002.

Princeton is at Harvard and Brown this weekend and then Princeton and Penn host Columbia and Cornell on Feb. 13. Cornell will wrestle at Penn at 1 and then drive to Princeton to take on the Tigers at 7 in Dillon Gym.

Cornell is still the favorite, despite how much progress Princeton has made. But hey, all streaks have to end sometime.

Even Phil Connors woke up on Feb. 3 at some point.

Hey Handsome

TigerBlog was walking with his colleague Brad Pottieger before the women's basketball game Saturday night at Jadwin Gym when a female voice in the stands above them shouted out "hey handsome."

Pottieger looked up. The man behind Brad, the one to whom the woman was actually yelling, also looked up.

TigerBlog admires Brad's self-esteem and self-confidence, if not his self-awareness. Just kidding. Just kidding.

Actually, Brad looked quite handsome. He wore a light pink shirt with a perfectly tied bow tie, one that had some pink in it as well.

He was certainly dressed for the night. It was "Play4Kay" night at Jadwin, and the game against Yale featured pink t-shirts, pink hoo rags (TigerBlog would have called them bandanas), pink cupcakes and pink cookies, all in the name of promoting the fight against breast cancer.

Brad, the event manager for women's basketball, clearly was in the spirit. So was pretty much everyone in the crowd, which swelled to 2,109 and saw Princeton defeat the Bulldogs 65-50.

Before he talks about the game, TigerBlog would like to mention two things.

First, he doesn't own anything pink, so when he got there, he took one of the pink t-shirts and wore it underneath his "Princeton Athletics" shirt. It created a nice little pink accessory. He thought about a hoo rag, but that wouldn't have been his best look.

And second, TB cannot tie a bow tie. He learned to tie a regular tie when he was about 6 or 7, but a bow tie? Never. If Brad tied his own bow tie, TB is impressed.

Jadwin Gym had a party atmosphere Saturday night, and it was a celebration of life and those who have beaten breast cancer more than anything else that wasn't basketball related.

Ah, but the basketball part was huge.

Princeton came into the weekend having not played in 20 days, not since a 50-48 loss to Penn in the Ivy opener for both on Jan. 9. The opponents were Brown, a team that went 12-2 out of the league, and then Yale, who had turned around and beaten Brown twice while Princeton was on exam break.

The Tigers, though, showed no rust at all. In fact, Princeton scored the first 13 points against Brown and never trailed in either game, beating the Bears 72-53 before the 15-point win over Yale.

For Princeton, that makes it 28 of its last 29 against Brown and Yale. And in its last 38 Ivy League weekends? There have been 35 sweeps.

The good thing about Princeton is that it has so much experience and so much depth that it doesn't need to count on any one player night after night. Annie Tarakchian (17 rebounds) and Michelle Miller (21 points, nine of which came in the first three minutes of the game) were co-Players of the Game Friday night. Saturday night, it was Alex Wheatley who led the way, with 14 points, including 12 in the third quarter - 10 straight at one point - as the Yale run that cut it to three was turned aside.

So where does that leave Princeton?

Penn also won its two games comfortably this weekend, and the Quakers are now 3-0 in the league and the lone unbeaten. Harvard and Cornell are both 3-1, though neither has played Princeton and Penn.

That'll change this weekend, when Princeton and Penn travel to New England. It'll be the Tigers at Dartmouth Friday night and then at Harvard Sunday afternoon (not Saturday night), as the game will be televised by the American Sports Network.

Penn will be at Harvard Friday and Dartmouth Saturday.

Penn will be at Princeton on March 8 in the final game of the regular season. Though Princeton can't look past anyone between now then, the last thing the Tigers want is to be in the position Penn was in a year ago.

That was when Princeton beat Penn in the opener and was 13-0 heading into the season finale at the Palestra. Penn was 11-2 and out of the league race, because the Quakers tripped up at home against Cornell.

Instead of playing for a shot at a tie and a playoff, Penn was out of it. The Tigers would settle for being 12-1 and taking on 13-0 Penn and taking a shot at getting two straight wins, but that's a long way away.

Princeton has to assume two things between now and then: 1) Penn isn't going to lose (not to say they won't; just to say that Princeton has to play assuming that the Quakers won't) and 2) every team would love to beat Princeton. It'll make the next five weekends really interesting.

But that's for down the road. For now, there was this past weekend, Princeton's first games in three weeks.

The fans - the two games combined drew nearly 4,000 - loved all 80 minutes of it. And why not?

The Tigers looked sharp, confident, athletic, deep and ready.

And Brad Pottieger?

He looked handsome. Yeah, let's go with that.

Thirty Years Ago

TigerBlog was still in the newspaper business in 1986, so he was home on the morning of Jan. 28.

He was watching TV, actually, watching the launch of the space shuttle Challenger. If he closes his eyes, he can still see it, the apartment he shared with his college friend Ed Mikus Jr., the way it was set up, the couch, the kitchen table, the TV.

He can remember watching the 1986 Mets go to the World Series championship, all while he was down with a case of mono. And he can remember watching the Challenger explode.

It's a vivid memory, watching the launch that day.

He didn't watch all of the shuttle launches. They were commonplace by then.

That one, the Challenger launch, was different, because of the presence of Christa McAuliffe, the winner of the "Teacher in Space" contest. She was chosen out of 11,000 applicants to ride on the space shuttle and teach a lesson from space, and the media coverage of McAuliffe's role in this particular mission was extensive.

TigerBlog, like the rest of what was a huge audience, was lured to the broadcast to see the teacher in space. It was a great moment, an average woman from a school in New Hampshire who had trained to fly with the astronauts.

The launch seemed perfectly normal, until 73 seconds later, when the Challenger exploded. At first, it looked like a normal firing of the rockets to send the shuttle into orbit. That only lasted for a second, though, before it was obvious that was not the case.

TigerBlog remembers the voice of the NASA announcer, when he said "the vehicle has exploded."

It was stunning, shocking. Christa McAuliffe, and the rest of the crew, gone, just like that. Actually, maybe not just like that. There has never been a conclusive decision reached on whether or not the astronauts were conscious and alive for the nearly three minutes between the explosion and the impact in the ocean.

The Challenger disaster hit the American psyche hard. President Reagan gave an epic speech, during which he said that they had "slipped the surly bonds of Earth, to touch the face of God."

TigerBlog didn't realize until he saw it in several places that yesterday was exactly 30 years to the day of the Challenger disaster. Christa McAuliffe, had she lived, would be 67 years old now.

For the record, the other astronauts who died that day were: Francis “Dick” Scobee,  Michael Smith,  Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis.

Thirty years later, TigerBlog still is touched by the memory of that moment.

It takes a special, special kind of courage to get into a spaceship and be launched into space. One of TigerBlog's favorite movies is "The Right Stuff," which chronicles the Mercury astronaut program.

The Challenger astronauts? That's the right stuff.

There's no way to segue from that to Princeton Athletics and show the astronauts who died 30 years ago the respect they deserve, so TB will just go right into this weekend's basketball.

It's a big one for both the men and the women.

The women are at home against Brown tonight (7) and Yale tomorrow night (6). Tomorrow night is the annual "pink" game, so any fans who wear pink will be admitted for free.

Princeton hasn't played in 20 days, not since its 50-48 loss to Penn in the Ivy opener. That's a long time to stew on a loss, and that, combined with going through exams, should have Princeton rested, focused and ready to get at it again.

Brown got off to a 12-2 start this year before getting swept by Yale the last two weekends. Yale, 2-0 in the league, is 11-8 overall.

Princeton is 26-1 in its last 27 games against Brown and Yale. The Tigers, for that matter, are 45-7 in their last 52 games - 43-5 against the rest of the world and 2-2 against Penn.

The Tigers have at least one more game with Penn this year, but that isn't until March 8. Between now and then, Princeton can't really count on too many Penn losses, so each of the next six weekends is critical.

One subplot for this weekend - Alex Wheatley has 953 points, leaving her 47 points away from 1,000. The senior figures to get that this year easily (barring injury), though she'd have to have a huge weekend to do it in Jadwin Gym.

As for the men, they are at Brown tonight and Yale tomorrow, taking on the teams with the worst record in the league (Brown is 5-11, 0-2) and then the second-best record (Yale is 11-5, 2-0). Princeton actually has the best record, at 11-4.

Yale and Columbia are both 2-0 in the league. Princeton is 1-0, after its OT win over Penn three weeks ago. Like the women, the men are now starting out with six straight Ivy weekends and then Penn here on March 8.

 This year's men's race might be the most wide open that TigerBlog can remember. In most years, there has either been a prohibitive favorite or two or at most three teams in the mix.

This year, it seems that basically every game will be a challenge, home or away. What will win the league? 12-2? 11-3?

Whatever it is, teams need to be ready each night.

Starting tonight, with the women here and the men in Providence.

TigerBlog loves the Ivy League basketball weekends. This is the first of six straight.

It'll be over in a blink.

Opening Weekend II

TigerBlog starts today with two small John McPhee stories, one of which involves Clay Kontulis of the men's squash team.

Let's start with John McPhee. In addition to being a legendary writer, Mr. McPhee is also an Academic Athletic Fellow for the men's lacrosse team. When it gets too cold to ride his bike outside, Mr. McPhee rides indoors with TigerBlog.

During a ride last week, TigerBlog relayed to Mr. McPhee that he had recently seen the two-point episode of "The Adventures of Superman" - originally aired in 1953 - where a company in the town of Silsby drills the world's deepest oil well, which goes more than 32,000 feet into the Earth.

And what happens? They drill down so far that they enter into a world of people who live in the center of the Earth, and they come up through the hole that's been dug to see what life's like on the surface.

They are smaller than humans, with giant heads and fur. They mean no harm, though the scare the bejeebers out of the people of Silsby - except for one little girl. Clark Kent and Lois Lane were in town to write about the oil well for the Daily Planet, and now Superman has to save the day from the vigilante townspeople.

Speaking of having the bejeebers scared out of you, TigerBlog was a little kid when he first saw this episode (on syndication, not in 1953) and he was scared out of his mind. And he got in trouble for telling his friend and neighbor Anthony Morelli that the little people would come up in his back yard and go into his house in the middle of the night, and Anthony's mother called MotherBlog to tell her that Anthony didn't sleep all night because he was scared.

Anyway, TB told John McPhee this story. McPhee is an accomplished, renowned (and self-taught) geologist, so TB asked him what the deepest hole ever drilled was. In North America, it's about 7,000 feet down.

And TB then asked him this: "Knowing what you know about geology, what's the odds that there are actually little people with big heads and fur living 32,000 feet down?" Mr. McPhee said he doubts it's true.

Then there was Tuesday. TigerBlog referenced something from "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and it turns out Mr. McPhee has never seen it.

About the same time, a young man wearing a "Princeton Squash" Nike shirt walked by. TigerBlog asked him if he'd ever seen "Raiders," and he said he hadn't either. TigerBlog was shocked by that.

TigerBlog asked him his name, and he said it was Clay. When TB checked out the roster, he found out he was Clay Kontulis, a freshman from Connecticut.

Oh, and since most good stories always get back to this, Clay's dad Charles was a lacrosse player at Princeton in the early 1980s. Or at least, TB is pretty sure, since there was a Charles Kontulis who played lacrosse and Clay's bio mentions his dad is Charles, from the Class of 1983. It'd be quite a coincidence if they were two different people.

TigerBlog told Clay that both he and Mr. McPhee were longtime rec squash players. He also said that he wondered if, on TB's best-ever day, he could take a point from a player on the Princeton men's team. TB said he doubted it. Clay, being a polite young man, assured him he could.

TigerBlog hit a few times with the late Bob Callahan, the longtime Princeton squash coach. Bob would stand right on the T in the center of the court and effortlessly hit shots that TigerBlog to chase all over. At the end of any given point, Bob would say "that was great hustle" or something like that, after he won yet another point without ever having to move and TigerBlog could barely breathe or stand up.

Clay and his squash teammates are among the legion of Princeton athletes who are getting into the thick of their seasons beginning this weekend.

As TB said the other day, there are 31 events scheduled between Friday and Sunday of this weekend. That's an insane amount.

If TigerBlog is counting right, then 16 Princeton teams will be competing this weekend.

Of those 31 events, 11 of them are on Princeton's campus.

Each of the last six weeks or so has its own feel. There's the hit-or-miss of events in mid-December, when some teams play and others don't. There's Christmas, when nothing happens.

There's early January, with its feel of getting everything in before shutting down for exams. There are exams themselves, when there are athletes practicing or in the weight room but with their minds clearly focused on their academics. Their athletic pursuits became a great study break and, TB has always thought, keep them balanced.

And now there's this week. There are no more exams but classes haven't yet started.

There's an excitement and anticipation, almost like it's another opening day. In many ways, that's what it is.

A huge weekend. Opening weekend II.

Hello Addison, Goodbye Tessio

Welcome to the world, Addison Grace Widener.

Addison is the third child of Kelly Widener, Princeton's Assistant Director of Athletics for Compliance. Addison came into the world just ahead of the blizzard - and about two weeks ahead of her due date - joining her two older brothers Michael and Connor and her father Ben.

Congrats to Kelly. She's one of the hard-working people behind the scenes here at Princeton Athletics, and she works in some way with pretty much every athlete in some capacity.

Like most of the people who work here, Kelly's commitment is to the betterment of the student-athlete experience. She works on so many different elements of that, and most of the time the average Princeton student-athlete doesn't realize how much effort people like Kelly are making.

It's not always easy to balance working in athletics with raising a family, and it's not for everyone. For those who do it, Princeton Athletics provides a great place for children to grow up, as TigerBlog can attest to first hand.

And now there's a newcomer to the extended Princeton Athletics family. Addison Grace Widener.

She made her appearance, and a few days later - yesterday to be exact - Abe Vigoda bowed out.

Abe Vigoda was 94 years old when he passed away. According to the obit that TigerBlog read, the cause was "old age" and his daughter said that hadn't been sick a day in his life.

That's the way to go.

TigerBlog is trying to think of Abe Vigoda's third-best role, and he can't think of one. It doesn't matter, because his two best are what defined him forever.

If you know anything at all about Abe Vigoda, it's that he played Salvatore Tessio in "The Godfather" and Detective Fish, first on the epic sitcom "Barney Miller" and then on the spin-off "Fish."

Let's start with Fish.

It's TigerBlog's belief that "Barney Miller" - which ran in the late 1970s - is the most realistic cop show of all time, in that the detectives in the squad room often went out on seemingly dangerous assignments, only to find out that they were nothing - except every now and then, when they really were serious. Almost nobody on the show every drew a gun, let alone fired it, and they spend most of their time making sarcastic comments at basically everyone.

It had great characters - Dietrich, Yemana, Levitt, Inspector Lugar, Wojo, Harris. And Fish.

Fish was as good as any of them. Vigoda played Fish as a detective who was well past his prime, for whom every day provided a challenge just to get out of bed, let alone be a New York City police officer. Every line he delivered was understated, deadpanned - and hilarious.

In fact, TB saw in that same obit a story for the how Vigoda came to be Fish in the first place. From the AP:
He liked to tell the story of how he won the role of Detective Fish. An exercise enthusiast, Vigoda had just returned from a five-mile jog when his agent called and told him to report immediately to the office of Danny Arnold, who was producing a pilot for a police station comedy.
Arnold remarked that Vigoda looked tired, and the actor explained about his jog. "You know, you look like you might have hemorrhoids," Arnold said. "What are you — a doctor or a producer?" Vigoda asked. He was cast on the spot.

As for Tessio, he was one of Vito Corleone's oldest friends and Capos, along with Clemenza, in "The Godfather."

DO NOT READ THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN "THE GODFATHER" AND WANT TO SOMEDAY

TigerBlog will give you one more paragraph to divert your attention. Actually, he'll give you a few.

Before he gets back to Tessio, Princeton Athletics is coming back to full action this weekend, with 31 events - 11 at home - and 16 teams who will be competing. There are Division I teams who do not have 16 teams total, let alone 16 who can compete in one weekend in January

Coming Feb. 1, which is Monday, practice starts for most spring sports, including lacrosse. It's hard to believe, but the first Division I lacrosse games are actually a week from Saturday, and the majority of D1 gets going the following Saturday, Feb. 13.

Princeton starts Feb. 20, with a doubleheader, with the women against Virginia and the men against NJIT.

Before that, there all of these winter teams, as well as men's volleyball - TigerBlog has never figured out if that's a winter or spring sport - and men's and women's tennis who play in Jadwin until he gets warm enough.

Is that enough Princeton for one day? For today, it'll have to be.

SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT 
SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

It's Tessio who betrays Michael at the end of the movie, which sets up the two greatest lines Abe Vigoda ever uttered in his life. They are Tessio's last two, as it turns out.

Vito, the retiring Don, warns Michael that whoever it is that comes to him to make a deal with Barzini is the one who is actually the traitor. While Tom Hagen muses that he thought it would be Clemenza, Michael says that he knew it would be Tessio, because "It's the smart move. Tessio was always smarter."

Anyway, Tessio doesn't realize he's been figured out until Tom and enforcer Willie Cicci make it clear that they are not going through with all of his arrangements. It leads to this exchange:

Tessio: Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him.
Tom: He understands that.

And then, a few seconds later:
Tessio: Can you get me off the hook? For old times sake?
Tom: Can't do it Sally.


If you've seen the movie, you know just how much Vigoda punctuated the word "hook." You also know how classic, epic, that scene is, not just in that movie but in the entire history of American movies.

END OF SPOILER ALERT
END OF SPOILER ALERT

And now, it appears, nobody was able to get him off the hook.

The news that Abe Vigoda died was probably met by many with "I thought he was already dead." He actually played along with that belief many times on late night shows through his later years.

By all accounts, he was a good guy, one who appreciated his good fortune in life and treated people well.

So goodbye Tessio.

And hello Addison.

Maybe you live as long, healthy and happy a life as Abe Vigoda did.

A Weekend In Ithaca

Of the roughly 25 inches or so of snow that fell in the Princeton area the other day, TigerBlog saw approximately zero of it.

Well, not absolutely zero. He saw a few flakes as he made his way out of town Friday.

And where did he go to get away from the winter weather? Where would anyone go?

Ithaca.

Yes, that Ithaca, the home of Cornell University. The place where there was almost no snow on the ground.

TigerBlog had some completely non-Princeton Athletics-related business at Cornell Sunday. The only problem is that if he didn't leave Friday, he would never have gotten there.

So off he went Friday night, just as the first of the flakes began to fall.

TigerBlog has been going to Ithaca since the Big Red played basketball in old Barton Hall, which is now the home of Cornell's indoor track and field. It's a giant facility - it looks like you could park a few dozen 747s in there - and it used to have a basketball court tucked into one corner.

Since then, TB has been there countless times - all to see Princeton play something. Until this weekend.

TB's original plan was to leave super early Sunday morning, drive up and come back, all in the same day. He's done that a lot.

Instead, the snow changed all that.

TigerBlog stayed in the Hotel Ithaca, which is on Cayuga Street by the Ithaca Commons and at various times has been, TB believes, a Ramada and a Holiday Inn. TB is pretty sure that he's stayed there more than he has any other hotel in the world, though he'd say that the Fireside Inn in West Lebanon, N.H., is up there too.

Once he got out ahead of the snow, the only problem then was what would he do to entertain himself in Ithaca for an extra day? Go to games, of course.

Well, and to a place called The Nines for pizza. He asked the only Ithaca native he knows - Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux - for a food recommendation, and she came up with The Nines.

It's in Collegetown, which is right next to the campus. TigerBlog recommends the deep dish pizza. And sit facing the dumbwaiter that keeps sending the pizzas down from the kitchen upstairs.

Cornell was home Saturday in basically everything. The Big Red had a basketball doubleheader against Columbia and a hockey doubleheader, with the women against St. Lawrence and the men against Harvard. There was also a home wrestling match against Lehigh.

TigerBlog went to the two basketball games and the hockey game.

He walked into Newman Arena, the home of Big Red basketball, in the third quarter of the women's game. The first two people he saw that he knew were Jeremy Hartigan and Julie Greco, from Cornell Athletic Communications. They knew he'd be there, so there was no real surprise in seeing them.

Barry Leonard was another story.

Barry is the longtime voice of Cornell football, basketball and lacrosse - the Dean, as it were. He had no reason to expect to see TigerBlog in Ithaca, and in fact he did a double-take. Then he shook his head and said asked a one-word question: "context?"

And so TigerBlog explained what he was doing there.

TigerBlog also saw Dave Wohlhueter, the longtime SID at Cornell, the one who was the main man of Ivy League athletic communications when TigerBlog first started at Princeton. It's always good to see The Heat.

As TigerBlog watched the games Saturday, he tried to remember how many times he's seen a game that involved two Ivy League teams in which neither was Princeton. Or even Penn, from back when he was a student.

He didn't count games in Ivy League lacrosse tournaments in which Princeton was playing other game. Or if there was another game on the campus where Princeton was playing, like the time he walked over to see Tim Bennett (another Ivy sports information veteran) at Yale softball after a Princeton-Yale lacrosse game.

No, just a game between Ivy teams without Princeton in the same neighborhood.

He can only think of one time. It was March 16, 1991.

Princeton played Villanova in the 1991 NCAA men's basketball tournament at the Carrier Dome (so Princeton was sort of in the neighborhood). Even now, 25 years later, that game still bothers Princeton.

The Tigers had lost to Georgetown 50-49 in the 1989 tournament and 68-64 to Arkansas in the 1990 tournament. The 1991 team - led by senior Kit Mueller and with Sean Jackson, George Leftwich, Chris Mooney, Matt Henshon, Chris Marquardt, Matt Eastwick and Mike Brennan - went 24-2 in the regular season. TigerBlog really wanted to see Princeton win that game.

Instead, Lance Miller - TigerBlog hates him to this day - made a tough shot with two seconds left to give Villanova a 50-48 win. TigerBlog was in the football press box at the Carrier Dome - it was the only available phone line to immediately send a story postgame - so he saw the end of the game from about 80 yards away.

To this day, that loss ranks in the top five, maybe even top three, of Princeton losses, though not the very top one. That is the 1998 second-round loss to Michigan State.

Anyway, on the way back from Syracuse, TigerBlog drove with former Princeton athletic communications duo Kurt Kehl and Mark Panus, and athletic trainer George O'Neil, who then was with the men's basketball team but who has been with men's lacrosse for a long, long time.

The four stopped at Cornell and saw Cornell-Harvard men's lacrosse. TigerBlog isn't sure why they stopped, though Panus is a Cornell alum. And he does remember that they got a flat tire on I-380 in the Poconos just after sundown.

Anyway, that's the only other game TB remembers, until the ones Saturday.

It was nice to the see the Cornell people TB knows. And the pizza was great.

And there was no blizzard. Just a lot of "you came to Ithaca to get away from the bad weather" lines.

Digging Out

TigerBlog is pretty sure that only five people have given him about 99% of his lifetime's haircuts, or at least his haircuts of the last 45 years or so.

There was the guy named Tom, the one whose son was a professional tennis player. He cut TB's hair from grade school through middle school and high school and then after college for awhile.

There was the woman in Houston Hall at Penn. Do they still have a barbershop there? TigerBlog looked it up on the Penn website but couldn't find anything about it.

Houston Hall is the student center at Penn. Back when TB was there, it was home to a record store (records, remember those?), a few places to eat, some meeting rooms, a giant common area and possibly a McDonald's. And a decent pizza place. Maybe it wasn't a McDonald's. TB can't remember.

Meanwhile, back at the haircuts, there was also a barber shop near the Lawrenceville School. TigerBlog went there a few times, until he stumbled upon a guy named John at another barber shop about 20 years ago.

Since then, John has been TB's go-to barber. John grew up in Russia and has had a pretty interesting life, as you might expect.

It takes John about six minutes to cut TB's hair. It took Tom a lot longer, but TB had a lot more hair back then.

TigerBlog went to John's shop Friday morning, when it was a bit eerie outside. It was cold but clear, with no wind.

The heaviest thing in the air at the time was the forecast for the coming blizzard, one that was to bring snow, heavy wind, widespread power outages, even lightning to the area starting a few hours later. At that time, though, it was clear and business as usual.

Of course, supermarkets were swamped. TigerBlog doesn't understand the hording, but oh well. The worst storms ever have set TB back three days at most.

John is not a fan of snow, even if he is from Russia. He said how much he preferred the 70 degrees it was on Christmas. He talked about retiring and moving to Hawaii, where it's summer all year round. What could be better than that, he asked. Then he wondered why people in Florida complain about the heat and humidity.

Then his six minutes with TB were over. Then, a few hours later, the blizzard arrived.

And once it arrived, well, it was wild. Record-setting wild.

More than two feet of snow fell in Princeton. Even more fell in other areas nearby. New York City had its biggest single snow total ever with more than 26 inches.

The shore didn't get much snow, but it did get incredible rain and wind, which led to incredible flooding.

The 10-day forecast suggests most of the snow should be gone shortly, with sunny skies and temps in the 40s for the most part. If this turns out to be the only big snowfall of the year, that'll be fine with TigerBlog.

On a normal winter weekend, a storm like this would have forced major scrambling to reschedule games, cancel trips and all that. Because of the end of exams, there wasn't much going on for Princeton Athletics.

The men's volleyball team got out to Los Angeles to play UCLA and then at UC-San Diego before the snow started. The women's tennis team is at Grand Canyon tomorrow to start its week in Arizona.

The end of the exams and the end of the blizzard lead directly into a widely busy time for Princeton's team. There are events every day this week, though only one is at home, the men's hockey game tomorrow night at Baker Rink against AIC.

This coming weekend has a ton of huge events, and many of them are at home.

There's HYP swimming and diving for the men's and women's teams. The wrestling team is home three times, against F&M and then the Ivy opener at Dillon Gym Saturday and then against Rutgers at Jadwin Gym Sunday.

And of course there is basketball.

The men are on the road, at Brown Friday and Yale Saturday. Princeton is 1-0 in the league, after its OT win over Penn back on January 9.

The women play at home against those two teams. Princeton, winner of five of the last six Ivy titles, has been sitting on its 50-48 loss to Penn in its league opener.

To stay with the snowy theme, the avalanche of Princeton events through next weekend is just the start for the next few months around here. There are no events a week from today, but there are 34 more coming the weekend after that, including the Ivy fencing round-robins that will end with the first winter Ivy titles.

That's a crazy number.

Oh, and you know what doesn't count among those 34 events? The men's lacrosse scrimmage, which will be Feb. 6 against Monmouth.

The snow can't melt fast enough.

Business Is Booming

TigerBlog has a few questions about the coming snow.

And they are this: 1) when is it going to start? 2) when it is going to end? 3) how much will there be at any given time?

That's all anyone wants to know, right?

So what do you get when you see the local news on TV? You get three things, none of which answer everyone's questions.

And they are this: 1) pictures of snow removal trucks and salt spreaders, 2) people buying snow shovels at hardware stores, 3) people buying bread and milk at supermarkets.

Who cares about that?

If TB had a network, he'd have someone whose job is to stand there and say "the snow will start at this time. Two hours later, there will be three inches of snow on the ground. Another two hours later, there will be another inch. It will end at this time. There will be this much total snow."

Then they'd just keep repeating it.

Snow shovels? Yeah, people buy them. It's like people near beaches buying beach chairs. Who cares? TigerBlog assumes that everyone who lives anywhere in the Northeast has some idea about snow removal.

Even as late as yesterday afternoon TigerBlog didn't have reasonable enough answers to his questions. Oh well. He assumes it's going to start snowing later and keep going all night, all day tomorrow and maybe into Sunday morning.

The other issue with snow forecasts is that there's the whole "boy who cried wolf" piece. A year ago, there were endless forecasts for epic snowstorms, only to have a few inches fall here or there. Eventually, the public simply tunes out the cries of coming gloom and doom.

If this one turns out to be nothing, that'll be fine with TigerBlog. He actually doesn't mind the snow when it falls, but he hates the way it lingers and lingers, turning dirty and black and ugly and just serving as a reminder that winter is going to be here for awhile.

Plus, what is he supposed to do with all the great snow pictures he has from a year ago from lacrosse?

The Princeton area has seen a few snowflakes to date, but nothing that would count as a storm. All that figures to be changing - just in time for the first scheduled athletic events in two weeks.

The weather has already messed with the sports calendar, as the women's tennis team was supposed to compete in Jadwin tomorrow. Instead, its match against Georgetown was postponed and its match against Delaware moved to today.

The Tiger Open men's and women's track and field meet is being moved from tomorrow to Sunday, to be held after the men's basketball game against Bryn Athyn.

The first game TigerBlog ever covered in the newspaper business was at a high school called Academic of the New Church, which is located in Bryn Athyn, Pa., on basically the same piece of land as the college.

Princeton plays its first Ivy weekend next weekend, at Brown Friday and Yale Saturday. For now, it has the game against Bryn Athyn as prep for that.

Before that game, or whenever you want, check out the videos on the men's basketball page about the freshmen and about Henry Caruso. TigerBlog didn't realize that Caruso went to the same high school as Tom Brady.

One event that won't be postponed by the weather for this weekend will be the Major League Lacrosse draft, though it was moved from 8:30 tonight to 2 this afternoon in Baltimore. Ryan Ambler, Princeton's leading returning scorer after a 51-point junior year, figures to go somewhere around 30-35.

Another event that won't have any problems will be the NFL playoffs. It's conference championship weekend, with Arizona at Carolina and New England at Denver. TigerBlog sees a Carolina-New England Super Bowl. 

Anyway, before that - and the snow and the resumption of Princeton sports - TigerBlog would like to offer a small thank you.

Readership numbers are way up these days. TigerBlog is appreciative.

In fact, in the eight years that TB has been doing this, two of his four most-read entries have been in the last few weeks - the one after the debut of the Chuck Dibilio documentary and the one with Josh Teves' great play against Union.

Day-in, day-out, though, the numbers have gotten to be pretty high.

Why is this?

Well, TigerBlog feels that it suggests that even in these days of 140-characters and less and less of the actual old-fashioned written word, there's still a place for what he does every day.

He's glad you agree.

Thanks for making business so good.

Here Comes The Snow

TigerBlog saw the way the wind was howling all day Tuesday and figured that his recycling bin had probably blown into the Delaware River by mid-afternoon.

Actually, it hadn't. It had only blown to the house next door and wedged against the side. Had there been nothing blocking it, then it would have been miles away.

Winter has arrived here. It was the coldest it's been all season the last few days, and now apparently snow is heading this way.

Or maybe rain. Or a mix.

In fact, TigerBlog has been studying the weather forecasts and can tell you that it's going to start either tomorrow or Saturday, last until Saturday or Sunday and leave either some, a lot of or an epic amount of snow here.

As women's track and field coach Peter Farrell said, it's going to be between two and 30 inches of snow.

As an aside, TigerBlog had to seek Farrell out on the track the other day to talk to him. This is the one drawback of the move to E level - TB doesn't get his two or three times per day dose of Farrell, who would stop by to talk about everything and anything.

Meanwhile, back at the weather, TigerBlog thinks it's time to change the calendar, at least in this area. Why give all four seasons equal time on the calendar when they don't really have equal time in reality?

Right now, each of the four seasons has exactly three months. Perhaps it should change to reflect what's actually going on and look like this:

Summer - May 20 to October 15
Autumn - October 16 to January 14
Winter - January 15 to April 1
Spring - April 2 to May 19

Yeah. That's about right.

See, the change in the calendar suckers you into thinking that it's going to be mild all winter, and then - blam - it hits you with wind and cold and snow. Oh well.

At least if the snow does show up it'll be the latest this area has had measurable snow fall ever. Or something like that.

Even though winter has just started, TigerBlog has already watched more NHL hockey on TV than he has pretty much any other sport in the last 12 months other than lacrosse. He's pretty sure he's watched more hockey than football, though it's pretty close.

Why has he watched all the hockey? Mike Condon, Princeton alum, Montreal Canadiens goalie. TigerBlog roots hard for Montreal when Condon plays and roots for them to give up 10 goals in the games he doesn't.

Condon, a rookie, has established himself as a legitimate NHL goalie this season, with Carey Price out injured for the most part. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Price gets back.

TB watched the NHL Network after the Canadiens lost the Bruins Tuesday night, and the panelists correctly said that none of Montreal's problems are Condon's fault.

As for Princeton hockey, the Tigers are in the tail end of exam break.

In case you forgot, the men's team tied RPI and Union at home in its last two games before the break. The highlight of the weekend was the incredible plays made by Josh Teves back-to-back as he dove to keep the puck out of the net at one end, got up and went down the other end and scored.

Missed it? HERE it is again.

Princeton finished 12th in the ECAC a year ago. The Tigers are currently tied for eighth with Colgate, with 10 league games left to 11 left for the Raiders.

The key to finishing in eighth is that it gives home ice for the first round of the ECAC playoffs. For Princeton to achieve that in Year 2 under Ron Fogarty would be incredible.

The Tigers don't jump right into the ECAC schedule after exams. First up would be a game Tuesday night at home against AIC (American International, located in Springfield). Then it's off to Harvard and Dartmouth next weekend.

Right now in the ECAC, Princeton and Quinnipiac have each played 12 games, while every other team has played 10 or 11. Right now, four points are all that separates sixth place from 12th, so obviously there is a long way to go.

On the women's side, the top four host the first round of the playoffs.

Princeton is 15-4-1 overall and 9-4-1 in the ECAC. The Tigers, with 19 points, trail only Quinnipiac, with 23, and they are three points ahead of Colgate and Clarkson, though Princeton has played two more games than those two.

Harvard is in 15th right now, five points back of Princeton with one fewer game played.

On the Ivy League side, Princeton is in first place, with 12 points (and seven games played). Every other team in the the league has played five Ivy games, and Cornell, the only team to have beaten Princeton, is in second, with seven points.

In case you don't know, the Ivy League takes the ECAC games played between Ivy teams and counts them separately in its own standings, awarding the champion at the end of the year based solely on those games.

Princeton's women play at UConn Monday and then play at Dartmouth next Friday and Harvard next Saturday. Yes, both Princeton teams are on the road at Harvard and Dartmouth. No, they don't play the same team on the same night.

So that's the hockey update. And the snow update? Now it's saying 5-8 inches for Princeton Saturday.

That probably means either nothing or two feet.