For the final time this (regular) college hockey season, I returned to Princeton last night, this time to catch Union College (Schenectady, NY) @ Princeton, with both teams still trying to position themselves favorably for the upcoming conference tournament games, yet, as you'll find out, it seemed like only one of the teams ended up "showing up" for the game last night... Before the game, Princeton welcomed class of 2003/famously-mustachioed "enforcer" throughout his career, George Parros, along with class of 2007 hockey alumnus Kevin Westgarth, who ended up first calling out the starting lineup for Princeton in its locker room pre-game, before both taking part in a "ceremonial" opening face-off shortly afterward!
Once the game started, however, all the "goodwill" from Princeton welcoming back two of its most recent hockey alums, along with having announced its plans to honor its 1998 and 2008 ECAC Hockey/Ivy League championship, and NCAA tournament-appearing, teams, suddenly seemed to just plain disappear, along with, also, the team itself, as Union immediately started pressuring Princeton's defense, and "peppering" them with quite a few shots on goal, to the tune of Union needing only about the first 10 minutes of the game to already have doubled Princeton's shot totals, and, indeed, it was right around that point in time that Union got on the scoreboard for the first of a few times on the night, only keeping up the defensive pressure later on, extending the lead to 2-0 right near the end of the opening 20 minutes!
During the first intermission, though, after everybody in attendance witnessed what already ended up being just the start of Union's domination of the game in general, Princeton first honored its 1998 ECAC Hockey conference championship team, featuring just about every mem
The following intermission, Princeton honored its dual 2008 ECAC/Ivy League (best regular-season record among all relevant teams) championship squad, using the same lineup/individual (re-)introduction procedures as with the '98 squad; the '08 team started off its postseason aspirations by defeating Yale at home in Princeton, before defeating both Colgate and Harvard in Lake Placid, to advance to the '08 NCAA tourney, where North Dakota ended up being the team that stopped Princeton's title hopes, that time in Madison, WI...
Union extended the lead again early in the second period, after which Princeton finally ended up converting something around the middle of the period, before drawing what ended up being the only (solo) Union penalty of the game, although there was a pair of "matching" minor penalties earlier in the game; during that penalty, however, Princeton suddenly became "listless" again, taking very few shots, and allowing one clear after another by Union's defense, which ended up remaining the case throughout the last 20 minutes of the game, before Princeton's lack of offensive pressure allowed Union to get an empty-net goal with just seconds remaining in the game to essentially "seal the deal", although, again, it seemed as if the game was over from the very beginning last night, with how Union completely stifled everything Princeton tried!
(...elsewhere in college hockey this weekend, there was a bit of a "dust-up" after the Arizona State @ Michigan Technological Institute ("Michigan Tech") game shortly after the Union @ Princeton game finished; that reminded me of a 2014 game I attended in Albany, NY, between RPI and Union, which featured a similar post-game "fracas" initiated by the losing team's coaching staff; RPI v. Union recap, 1/26/14; the previous time I had seen any Union teams in action at all prior to this past weekend down in Princeton)
(...in Olympic hockey over in South Korea, meanwhile, team U.S.A. didn't even bother showing up to any of its games, seemingly, getting upset by Slovenia, and squeaking by Slovakia before getting reamed by Russia, which itself got upset by Slovakia, which, again, team U.S.A. defeated, while the South Koreans arguably did better, barely losing to the Czech Republic, while keeping Canada rather close, despite getting rolled by Switzerland; Canada, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Sweden all won their respective groups, placing all the rest of the teams into the "qualification round" for the chance at a (men's hockey) gold/silver/bronze medal!)
(...in other Olympic events, the curling went as expected, with Sweden easily positioning itself for all the gold medals there, with Canada winning the dual men's/women's curling gold medal over Switzerland a few days ago; the figure skating has been about the most "even" of all sports these Olympics up until now; the Netherlands has taken the vast majority of the speed skating gold medals so far; nobody, individual or team, can seem to handle anything outdoors, with all sorts of cancellations and delays plaguing the various skiing/sledding events!)
(...incidentally, I mentioned back when Princeton ended up blowing a two-goal lead at home to Cornell near the beginning of the season that Princeton's game-day staff ended up tacking on a "roaring tiger" sound effect within a few seconds after announcements of Princeton goals - well, as it turned out, the 4 (Cornell)+3 (St. Cloud State game 1/2)+3 (St. Cloud State game 2/2)+1 (Union) goals for Princeton in each of the team's games I personally attended this season set the total there at 11; for the entire season, Princeton scored 51 goals, plus those 11 in the games I attended, in the end, bringing the total amount of "roaring tigers" heard inside the Hobey Baker Memorial Ice Rink this season to 62; personally, I hope Princeton keeps that little sound effect on its in-house sound system in the future, since there seems to be very little else that sets Princeton games apart from those at most other schools, since it seems as if the program is relying on the history of the rink alone to make things seem "unique"!)
On a personal note, again, barring Princeton returning home for the first round of the ECAC Hockey conference tournament the first weekend of March (which might still happen, since there's been a total "logjam" in the middle of most of the last few ECAC Hockey conference standings these past few weekends between Colgate, Dartmouth, Quinnipiac, Princeton, and Yale entering the last weekend of the regular season; that being said, any one of those teams could end up either hosting one of either Brown, RPI, or St. Lawrence, or traveling to the rink of the #8 finishing team), my plans for next month most likely include the NJSIAA high school ice hockey quadruple-header (four games this year, for the first time in N.J. high school hockey history) at the Prudential Center in Newark at the very beginning of spring break here (which you might recall my little "rant" about back in early December, specifically in contrast to the scene for American International College, which has routinely brought out only hundreds of people to its games since moving to downtown Springfield, MA a few years ago, despite playing in an almost-7,000 seat building!), followed at the end of the month by the 45th annual FDNY-NYPD game, once again at MSG (like April 2016), possibly followed by watching the finalists of the Bridgeport "regional" pair of games later that Saturday night!
Looking ahead to the conference tournaments, those function practically the same as their basketball tournaments, with the campus sites of the higher-finishing teams hosting the earlier games in each conference, with the eventual winners of each round of the tournament moving on to a specific location for the conference championship games later in the month:
Atlantic Hockey conference tournament: higher-seeded teams host 1st/2nd rounds; winners advance to the Blue Cross Arena in downtown Rochester, NY, for championship weekend;
Big 10 tournament: highest-seeded remaining team hosts games each round, up to, and including, the conference championship game; the now-closed Joe Louis Arena in downtown Detroit hosted the 2015 and '17 games, so those final games for the conference each year might end up moving to the new building there sometime in the future;
ECAC Hockey: as mentioned, higher-finishing teams host games in first two rounds; winners there advance to the old 1980 Olympic rink in Lake Placid, NY;
Hockey East: same procedures as other conferences; winners earlier in the tournament end up in the same situation as decades' worth of Hockey East championship hopefuls: in Boston, MA, specifically, in recent years, at the TD Garden right above North Station;
NCHC: same as all others; winners advance to the Target Center (home of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves, yet has never had any regular hockey tenants) in Minneapolis, MN;
WCHA: like Big 10, higher-seeded remaining teams progressively host each round's games, once again including the championship game, in a change to the conference tournament scheduling only made last year (2017)...
Just as the famous NCAA basketball tournament always allows dozens of venues to open their doors just a few more times each season/year in general, its hockey tournament allows various "other" venues to host early postseason matchups; this year, Allentown, PA (MW), Bridgeport, CT (E), Worcester, MA (NE), and Sioux Falls, SD (W) will host games later in March, with the winners of each "regional" set of games advancing, fittingly enough for the eventual NCHC tournament-winning team, to Minneapolis in early April!
First off, aside from the Union @ Princeton recap/look ahead to the conference tournaments, Bentley University, located just outside downtown Waltham, MA, about a half-hour west of Boston, just opened up a new "multi-purpose" athletic arena this weekend, after closing down its previous venue with a split hockey doubleheader against the Air Force academy; to open the new joint, Bentley welcomed another military hockey team, Army/the U.S. Military Academy team, to Waltham for a pair of games...
Unfortunately for Bentley, that goal was it, as Army ended up winning the first game at the newest college hockey rink in the country, 5-1; Bentley ended up taking "revenge" later on, though, as it took the back half of the doubleheader, 5-2, the following night, more than making up for Army spoiling the rink's "grand opening" game!
(surely, though, if Bentley can put together better records within these next few upcoming seasons, then that place should end up becoming an incredibly intimidating place for opposing teams to have to (occasionally) play in, with potentially raucous crowds like that!)
Getting away from that little "study in contrasts", though, between Bentley Arena, and places like Hobey Baker Rink (Princeton; 1922/1923)/Matthews Arena (currently Northeastern U., although the rink hosted all the Boston-based college hockey programs historically; 1909/1910), the retail industry, as has been the case over many past months and years, ended up suffering even more "gut punches" recently:
Bi-Lo/Winn-Dixie supermarkets in SE U.S. preparing bankruptcy restructuring filing; so, too, is upstate NY-based Tops Markets; Albertsons, owner of many other supermarket chains, including Acme Markets around here, is said to be looking at taking over many of both companies' locations once they end up getting shuttered (personally, I say they and Kroger, another supermarket company that has never invested around here, should look to do so, since, if you ask me, we can't have enough supermarkets in some places around here!);
...the Bangor (Maine) Mall is apparently now seeking a tax break, while being run by temporary owners, now that the Simon mall company has turned over its ownership there;
Macy*s most recent liquidation "deals" have apparently been deceiving; a look at how the company could end up surviving in a very different fashion within the next few years;
...even now, nobody can figure out what caused Sears' rapid downfall, with its revenue/sales/stock shares/etc. all plummeting last quarter; meanwhile, the chain somehow might have actually turned profits at the same time;
(also, creditors for the now-defunct Sears Canada have demanded their dividend/pension fund payments be delivered A.S.A.P., in response to Eddie Lampert still getting his own payments, while there might be a way out of the company's epically long nightmare of recent years)
