Trip Recap

I apologize for not having posted for a few days; I was traveling and didn't have my computer with me.

A few friends from the fraternity and I spent the last few days on one of those very college-like road trips, with very little planning and plenty of alcohol. We took a similar trip last summer, when we went to our international convention in Louisville. This time, we went north and east.

I was stuck in Ithaca until Monday on account of last weekend's quarterfinal hockey series lasting three games, but I went to Connecticut for about 24 hours and returned to Ithaca Tuesday night.

Bright and early Wednesday afternoon, we left for Canada. We made it to Ottawa around 7pm, where we had arranged to stay at the chapter of our fraternity at Carleton University. The guys at the house, of course, had no idea we were coming and were (happily?) surprised when we rolled up in front of their house and told them we were from the Cornell chapter. Nonetheless, they made sure to show us a good Canadian time. A common theme from this trip was that Canadians kept insisting to us that because Canadian beer has a higher alcohol content, we Americans wouldn't be able to handle it. Beginning with Moosehead at dinner, and continuing with Molson Dry (10.1% alcohol) and other things afterwards, they did their best to outdrink us. We made it to a few bars and ended up crashing on the floors and couches of their house (which only sleeps 5, as opposed to our 28).

Thursday morning, we left for Montreal without any real idea where we were going. We saw a freeway on-ramp with "Montreal" and headed in that direction. Once we saw the city skyline we figured out which roads to take to get to downtown. Having nowhere to stay, we (I) drove around downtown and sent our hotelie to negotiate prices at various hotels. We found a reasonably priced (when divided by 5) room and showered for the first time in a couple of days. It's too bad we only had one night in Montreal, since there's so much of the city I would have liked to see. We did go to dinner at a nice French restaurant and made it to five drinking establishments afterwards.

Not everyone in Montreal was happy to interact with Americans. At one bar, the waitress didn't even ask all five of us for our drink orders, and handed us the check a minute later. At another place, the waiter asked us, to our amusement, "you're not from around here, eh?"

We left Montreal around midday Friday and headed south on 87 to Albany, where Cornell was playing in the ECAC Hockey semifinal. With our usual great planning, we called our chapter house at RPI on the way there and asked if we could sleep at their house that night. Cornell won a double-overtime thriller against Princeton, scoring twice in the final 3:00 to send the game to overtime. Captain Colin Greening won the game almost 10:00 into the second overtime to send Cornell to the championship game.

On Saturday, in the conference final, Cornell played their worst game of the season and was embarassed by Yale, 5-0. This was my 32nd Cornell hockey game this season, and most likely my last one, since I don't think I'll be able to make it to Grand Rapids, Mich., next weekend for the NCAA Regional. Cornell, seeded 3rd in the Regional, opens with a game against 2nd-seeded Northeastern. The winner will most likely have to play Notre Dame to make it to the Frozen Four in Washington, DC. I have Frozen Four tickets but I'm not too confident that Cornell will be there, especially given our terrible play last night.

Regardless, this was a fun way to spend Spring Break.

Brief recap of other significant Cornell sporting events:
--NCAA Basketball: #3 Missouri def. #14 Cornell, 78-59
--Lacrosse: #3 Cornell def. #8 Duke, 10-6, on Tuesday, and Yale, 15-8, yesterday
--NCAA Wrestling Championships: Cornell finishes 5th in the nation, and Troy Nickerson wins a national championship at 125 pounds