On to Atlantic City

Ice hockey holds center stage today because any time Dartmouth takes a playoff series from Harvard (in dramatic fashion, no less) it's big news. Undaunted by a problem with the ice, the Big Green scored a 4-3 come-from-behind win over the Crimson yesterday at Thompson Arena to win the quarterfinal series two games to one and advance to the ECAC semifinals in Atlantic City.

Dartmouth will play Cornell in one game and No. 1 Yale will play surprising Colgate, the first 12-seed ever to make it to the semis, in the other. It will be the third meeting of the season between the Big Green and the Big Red. Dartmouth tied Cornell in the first meeting (2-2 in Hanover) and lost the second in overtime (3-2 in Ithaca).

Congratulations to the Dartmouth skaters, who are bidding for their first NCAA appearance since head coach Bob Gaudet was in the nets for the 1979-80 season. That said, here's something the Ivy League presidents might want to keep in mind when they use length of season as one of their explanations (read: excuses) for not allowing the football champion to go to the NCAA playoffs:

141 – days between Dartmouth's first hockey game and Friday night
64 – days between Dartmouth's football opener and final game

And it's worth noting that there are three Ivy League hockey teams whose seasons have been extended while just one football team would get an automatic bid.

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The Brown Daily Herald has a story about four recent Brown graduates who either spent last season on NFL practice squads or made it to the last cut of preseason and are bidding to keep playing.

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The Princeton men's basketball team will be in Tampa, Fla., to play Kentucky Thursday in the NCAA Tournament. Harvard, which had hopes of becoming the first Ivy League team ever to get an at-large bid to the NCAA's, will instead play at Oklahoma State Tuesday in an NIT game to be broadcast live on ESPN.

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The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine has an interesting graphic showing the demographics of the current student body.