Princeton University’s mens ice hockey team won the ECAC Championship last night, defeating Harvard (again! glee!) 4-1 to earn a spot to the NCAA playoffs. This season held so many highlights it’s hard to enumerate:
After being left in the dust by Notre Dame in a pair of home humblings, the Tigers bounced back to go on a tear in January. Leadership and coaching. Here’s what’s even cooler: Landis Stankievich, Princeton Senior, won a Rhodes Scholarship this year. Shades of Ken Dryden?
Former Devils Youth players Zane Kalemba and Kevin Shattenkirk came up big for the Tigers. Kalemba in particular was Brodeur-esque between the pipes during the ECAC run, shutting out Yale twice in the quarters, earning another blank against giant-killer Colgate, and then giving up a singleton to the Crimson in the title game. One goal when everything was on the line. He’s from NJ, not Canada, but he could be good enough to take over our favorite Canadian’s New Jersey spot in a few years.
Guy Gadowsky proved that sometimes it takes a bit of time to put your imprint on a college program. This is the first team that’s been mostly his work, and the results are impressive. Princeton missed winning the ECAC regular season in the last game of the year, but they delivered in the post season.
As the song goes, Princeton, forward! In more than 15 years of the past two decades, this time of year has had me cheering for a Princeton team in an NCAA playoff, typically involving a hardwood floor and a roundball. I’m thrilled to continue to the tradition.
