Around the Water Cooler: Lucky Princeton and ECAC Hockey

Football season has begun in the Ivy League, but don’t worry—some things never change. Harvard and Penn are still looking like the top dogs and Cornell is still atrocious. Meanwhile, Princeton’s season took a turn for the worse before the first game was even finished. But for those of you who could care less about men hitting each other on a field, never fear. Hockey season’s just around the corner, so you can look forward to some more hard-hitting action—just this time, on the ice.

Penn opened its football season with a spot on College Gameday and a live broadcast on ESPN3.com. But the attention wasn’t necessarily the kind the Quakers might have hoped for. Instead, all eyes were on the squad as it took the field for the first time after Penn co-captain Owen Thomas took his own life in April. The Quakers opened the game with a 40-second moment of silence for Thomas, who wore #40 for Penn, and then proceeded to beat Lafayette, 19-14. And that vaunted defense that graduated six starters? Didn’t give up a single touchdown, as the Leopards scored off a blocked punt and an interception.

Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, Princeton once again found Lehigh’s Goodman Stadium a hostile environment. After losing co-captain Jordan Culbreath for the season there last year—Culbreath’s ankle injury led to a diagnosis of aplastic anemia—co-captain Steven Cody, an All-American linebacker, broke his leg defending a pass in the fourth quarter. Cody had surgery on the leg on Sunday and is out for the season.

But enough about football. The ECAC—the conference in which all six Ivy League hockey teams play—released its coaches’ polls last Thursday, and Ivy teams are picked to finish atop both leagues. The Yale men and Cornell women, each of whom won the ECAC regular season title last year, are the predicted conference winners. The Ancient Eight is well-represented both near the top—the Big Red men were picked second, and the Harvard women tabbed third—and the bottom—Princeton and Brown are picked 10th and 11th for the gentlemen, with the Bulldogs and Bears in the same positions for the ladies.

Crimson coach Katey Stone is again auditioning for the biggest job in women’s hockey: coaching the national team. After being passed over for the Olympic gig last year, Stone has already helmed the national squad at an August national festival, and she’ll be behind the bench for the Four Nations Cup in November. A pair of Ivy faces will join her on the coaching staff—Dartmouth coach Mark Hudak and former Yale coach Hilary Witt are her assistants—while three Harvard players will once again be skating for her. Olympic veterans Julie Chu ’06-’07 and Caitlin Cahow ’07-’08, along with current sophomore defenseman Josephine Pucci, made the roster.