Lax Notre Dame -Duke NCAA title game

We ran into a couple Virginia fans walking over from Baltimore's inner harbor to the stadium complex. "You came back?" I asked. "Yep," one of them said, "to root against Duke." I guess it's not just Cornell fans who feel that way.

The title game was not very exciting especially after the 14-13 Duke shootout win over Virgnia in the second Saturday semifinal. It took Notre Dame 19 shots to get its third goal. Scott Rodgers had 15 saves for Notre Dame. He was awesome again as he was against Cornell (16 saves) and his being MVP was a foregone conclusion long before the eventual winning team. The fact that Notre Dame stayed with Duke and the upset seemed possible kept the lowest scoring game in NCAA title game history from being a snooze. It was bleeping hot, 90 in the stands, unlike the beautifully balmy weather Saturday night and decent daytime weather in our 12-7 loss.

Notre Dame's odd attack, relying mostly on a middie getting free for a 15-yard shot before a defender could slide to cover, worked again, at least since ND held Duke pretty much in check, some of it due to the defense, a lot of it Rodgers. ND made a lot of mistakes that shouldn't happen at this level such as bobbled passes and errant throws, which I thought would cost them the game, but then ND stayed even and at 5-5 with ~ 30 seconds left and Rodgers making another nice stop, it looked as if ND could head up field and set up a final. In a scramble for the ball in the goalie circle, it was bobbled, Rodgers grabbed it, started to step out, stepped back in, and got called on it. (Right call. Sorry ND fans.) Duke squandered the last 15 seconds and didn't get off a decent shot, which took it to overtime and what seemed likely to be a long series of OT perods until Duke defensive long pole CJ Constabile cleanly won the faceoff, outran two defenders behind him, and split between two other defenders who didn't slide over in time with a nice shot that beat Rodgers for the 6-5 final score and Duke's first ever NCAA title. Earlier, some faceoffs had taken 30 second of wrestling before the ball popped loose.

For a moment - only - I felt a pang of happiness for Duke at the amazing ending. Expect to see a bunch of stories about how the Blue Devils have final erased the stigma of being jerks off the field as their (mis)conduct came to light in the wake of the trumped-up sex charges that were the figment of the DA's imagination.

Too bad for Notre Dame. Cinderella came in with a 7-6 record. Rodgers is a senior. A FF return seems unlikely, maybe even another tourney bid unless they have an awesome recruiting year. They may be this year's UMass - Albany - Stony Brook (also this year) - Delaware that makes a run from nowhere and eventually falls short. In a purer, better world, Butler would have sunk that three-pointer at the buzzer to win the NCAA basketball title and ND would have found one more goal in regulation. Instead, we have Duke feeling smug twice over.

It was impressive to see all the fans' tees from the lacrosse-playing colleges. Everyone was pretty good natured.

[Edit add:] I was about to come back this morning and tone down the part about Duke. Perhaps it's time to leave rest the stigma today's Duke team carries for their forbears being boors back in the 2006 era. The last of the players from that team leave the college scene this year (the fifth year of eligibility plus those who transferred and/or took time off). Sins of their fathers and all. Then I pick up today's New York Times and the players themselves (aided by the NYT writer) invoke history but more in a one-side, we-were-victims sense, talking about how bad the 2006 and 2007 teams felt, how it was hard to concentrate on lax, etcetera. Just once, it would be nice, for a Duke act of contrition. When the players and coaches ran around in 2007 with caps and shirts that read INNOCENT, there should be a footnote the size of the driver warnings in the Lexus manuals (1200 manual pages total for a hybrid):

"* Innocent means four guys innocent of trumped-up charges by the DA but as the Duke team we accept responsibility for our history of crude and sophomoric behavior and, having said that and meant that, would you let us move on and play lacrosse? And we'll try not to pee in public."

The biggest surprise of the weekend for me was exactly how upset the final result made me. I knew I cared, but I didn't expect the level of anger I'm feeling today. I don't want to go back into the politics or details about the incident that caused it...I'm not even sure of my own opinion about it, the behavior of the players before or since, and the actions of the University before or since. What I am sure of is that the decision to give a sweeping 5th year exemption was IMO the worst judgment I've ever seen the NCAA hand out. It stunned me then, and now Duke's championship is a direct result 4 years on.

I rooted for 2 things in this order since 2006:

1) A National Championship for Cornell
2) That all those 5th year Duke players would go home empty handed.

As "Harvard Sucks" is the default phrase around here, I found myself saying or thinking "F*@# Duke" every time I saw a piece of Duke lax gear. I won't congratulate them (I'm sure they'll be crushed at that) and I'm pissed that they've been added to the small list of NCAA Champions. There will always be an asterisk in my mind.

F Duke.

billhoward
The title game was not very exciting especially after the 14-13 Duke shootout win over Virgnia in the second Saturday semifinal... The fact that Notre Dame stayed with Duke and the upset seemed possible kept the lowest scoring game in NCAA title game history from being a snooze.

Not very exciting?? You don't appreciate the excitement of strong defensive play, especially by a presumed outmatched team. You sound like all the people who think Cornell hockey is boring because we play a strong defensive game. Were you unexcited by the 15 mostly spectacular saves by ND goaltender Rodgers? Duke had 5 saves on the day.

I thought that 30-35 second faceoff was amazing- the jostling and battling by the wingers waiting for the ball to come out looked like the hockey scrums in the slot as the defense tries to move forwards out of the goaltender's way.

The Notre Dame defensemen did a great job on Quinzani and Crotty, each only had one assist on the day. Especially that dwarf for Notre Dame, #50, Andrew Irving.He's the guy who broke through two of our defensemen to get a long-stick goal with 2 min left. The program lists him as 5'9". I think he's shorter than Donna DeFlorio.

A lot of people don't appreciate the excitement of good defense, especially in a game where there is a massively publicised favorite against a supposed vastly inferior underdog. A lot of that is because although lacrosse is a highly telegenic sport, the camera frequently is too tight on the ball so you cant see the coordination of a good defense on television.

The truth is, after the first quarter, OUR game was the snoozer, for all the reasons brought out in the thread.

Tim, I'm guilty of not fully appreciating the defensive battle and I can only plead heat stroke. When it's ninety-something in the stands, with none of the cool breeze we had Saturday night, and water is $4 a bottle, I could have used a more uptempo game. I also attribute some small part of the score to the miscues ND made early on that blunted their drives but I also realize I was looking for them because I was looking for reasons ND would lose. Yes, we loved those long faceoffs. A couple times I looked around the field to see if Ned Crotty had been taken off because he did not seem a factor (1 SOG) and that's a credit to ND's defense. I also like 1-0 hockey games but I'm not sure the sport could survive a steady diet of them, any more than it can take the 10 wild goals in the first two periods of Saturday's Black Hawks - Flyers Game 1.

Yeah, I see you're point. I'm just an old, crabby, circa 1968 defenseman shaking his cane/wooden stick. I liked the Duke Virginia game better too.

billhoward
water is $4 a bottle,

I'm writing a letter to M&T Stadium. They're missing another money-making opportunity. I musta bought $80 worth of water for the weekend, and I woulda PAID another $4.00 to piss. NO rentry, you know.

The stadium had water fountains. I didn't get a chance to try them out, though; when I asked a security officer on the concourse where the nearest one was, he said something about not trusting them because he had heard reports of brown water. However, he was kind enough to point me towards a small guest information office which had a Poland Spring cooler for refills.

Also, the bottle in my back pocket was not confiscated when entering the stadium. $0 spent on water.

TimV
NO rentry, you know.

There was on Saturday. Hands were being stamped after the first semi-final.

I work in a major medical center and I can't believe how people still drink from public fountains. The bacterial counts in those things are staggering.The only things more infectious in our place are the men's room floors and, in a tie, the Soup kettle in the cafeteria.

But Lacrosse crowds are better than football crowds which are better than hospital crowds with respect to their microbiological flora, right? Right???

Security was more fan-friendly in Baltimore than Boston. No hassles about bringing in a 100-400mm lens (way at the bottom of the bag tho wrapped in a microfiber cloth) and we wrapped a couple water bottles inside rain ponchos and they got in okay, too, Saturday. In fact my son walked through security carrhing a water bottle and no one said a thing.

But you couldn't bring in nearly enough water to cope with Monday's heat, especially since I got taken down by dehydration a couple years ago on vacation.

I guess I have faith that public drinking fountains aren't unsafe else we'd have read about the problems. Too much faith in public health regs? The Baltimore water fountains did have a bit of an off taste. After the WSJ story about airplane lav water (the sink lav water, not the blue water), I won't even brush my teeth there.

billhoward

For a moment - only - I felt a pang of happiness for Duke at the amazing ending. Expect to see a bunch of stories about how the Blue Devils have final erased the stigma of being jerks off the field as their (mis)conduct came to light in the wake of the trumped-up sex charges that were the figment of the DA's imagination.
...
In a purer, better world, Butler would have sunk that three-pointer at the buzzer to win the NCAA basketball title and ND would have found one more goal in regulation. Instead, we have Duke feeling smug twice over.
...
[Edit add:] I was about to come back this morning and tone down the part about Duke. Perhaps it's time to leave rest the stigma today's Duke team carries for their forbears being boors back in the 2006 era. The last of the players from that team leave the college scene this year (the fifth year of eligibility plus those who transferred and/or took time off). Sins of their fathers and all. Then I pick up today's New York Times and the players themselves (aided by the NYT writer) invoke history but more in a one-side, we-were-victims sense, talking about how bad the 2006 and 2007 teams felt, how it was hard to concentrate on lax, etcetera. Just once, it would be nice, for a Duke act of contrition. When the players and coaches ran around in 2007 with caps and shirts that read INNOCENT, there should be a footnote the size of the driver warnings in the Lexus manuals (1200 manual pages total for a hybrid):

"* Innocent means four guys innocent of trumped-up charges by the DA but as the Duke team we accept responsibility for our history of crude and sophomoric behavior and, having said that and meant that, would you let us move on and play lacrosse? And we'll try not to pee in public."

Of course you're confident that the Notre Dame lacrosse players don't drink, pee in bushes, or like to see women take off their clothes, thus making them far more deserving than the Duke players.

They weren't victims of a DA's imagination, they were victims of a drugged-up hooker who should have had the credibility of Yasser Arafat, a hopelessly politically correct Duke administration, a national media (with the exception of FOX) that tried and convicted them within the first few days, and a corrupt DA who took all that and ran with it.

On another front, it's interesing to note how 30 years has changed the tenor of locker room pep talks. The NY Times reported Danowski as saying “The last thing I said to the guys last night, I said: ‘Listen, this is not going to define your life. Hopefully one day you’re going to meet the right woman, get married and you’re going to have children, those will be the best days of your life.’ ” Different circumstances to be sure, but light years from Herb's frank "If you lose this game you'll take it to your f**king graves".

TimV
I work in a major medical center and I can't believe how people still drink from public fountains. The bacterial counts in those things are staggering.The only things more infectious in our place are the men's room floors and, in a tie, the Soup kettle in the cafeteria.

On what do you base this claim? Actual measurements that you maide or read about? More importantly, does the bacteria get transferred to moving water? I don't put my mouth on the metal but I do drink from fountains all the time. I like the fact that they need no bottles or cups but dislike the fact that most of the water goes down the drain.

Roy

Roy 82

TimV
I work in a major medical center and I can't believe how people still drink from public fountains. The bacterial counts in those things are staggering.The only things more infectious in our place are the men's room floors and, in a tie, the Soup kettle in the cafeteria.

On what do you base this claim? Actual measurements that you maide or read about? More importantly, does the bacteria get transferred to moving water? I don't put my mouth on the metal but I do drink from fountains all the time. I like the fact that they need no bottles or cups but dislike the fact that most of the water goes down the drain.

Roy

There are many reports of this. Many have made the national news over the past few years; I'm surprised this is news now. Do a Google search of water fountains, bacteria and read to your hearts content.

Jim Hyla

Roy 82

TimV
I work in a major medical center and I can't believe how people still drink from public fountains. The bacterial counts in those things are staggering.The only things more infectious in our place are the men's room floors and, in a tie, the Soup kettle in the cafeteria.

On what do you base this claim? Actual measurements that you maide or read about? More importantly, does the bacteria get transferred to moving water? I don't put my mouth on the metal but I do drink from fountains all the time. I like the fact that they need no bottles or cups but dislike the fact that most of the water goes down the drain.

Roy

There are many reports of this. Many have made the national news over the past few years; I'm surprised this is news now. Do a Google search of water fountains, bacteria and read to your hearts content.

Actually, I did try finding some information on this after TimV's initial post. (I make a regular practice of carrying around a water bottle, and frequently fill it up at public water fountains).

While it has been documented in some places that the fountain and spigot itself are hotbeds of bacteria, I have not seen anything speaking to the bacterial content of the water itself. One columnist writes:

Despite extensive searching, I wasn't able to find a single study that looked at whether the water from drinking foutains -- as opposed to the fountain itself -- is contaminated with germs and bacteria.

Indeed, the closest thing I found to any research on this area was an episode of the popular Food Network show Food Detectives that examined the issue. While far from a controlled scientific study, the show's staff took water samples from a number of drinking water fountains in both public and private locations then tested them for bacteria. Their limited testing found that while the surface of the fountains were indeed contaminated, the water itself was relatively clean. Indeed, they found the water from workplace water coolers they tested were far more contaminated than public fountains, something they theorized had to do with people putting their water bottles and mugs right up to the down-facing spigot.

[communities.canada.com]

I looked around a little, and I certainly wasn't convinced that drinking from a public fountain (without touching the spigot) puts me contact with any greater bacteria content than does touching the arm rests at the stadium, entering the bathroom, touching the pen to sign my ticket receipt, etc. That, and I have an immune system.

I know most of us had a hard time deciding which team, if any, to root for in the finals. We had a hard time rooting for either. But don't you think that a discussion of how vile, sick, and contaminated public water fountains are is going a bit too far? We don't discuss disease and unsanitary public facilities with regard to any other school, not even Harvard. If Duke & Notre Dame are like bacteria, then what is Harvard?

Jordan 04

Jim Hyla

Roy 82

TimV
I work in a major medical center and I can't believe how people still drink from public fountains. The bacterial counts in those things are staggering.The only things more infectious in our place are the men's room floors and, in a tie, the Soup kettle in the cafeteria.

On what do you base this claim? Actual measurements that you maide or read about? More importantly, does the bacteria get transferred to moving water? I don't put my mouth on the metal but I do drink from fountains all the time. I like the fact that they need no bottles or cups but dislike the fact that most of the water goes down the drain.

Roy

There are many reports of this. Many have made the national news over the past few years; I'm surprised this is news now. Do a Google search of water fountains, bacteria and read to your hearts content.

Actually, I did try finding some information on this after TimV's initial post. (I make a regular practice of carrying around a water bottle, and frequently fill it up at public water fountains).

While it has been documented in some places that the fountain and spigot itself are hotbeds of bacteria, I have not seen anything speaking to the bacterial content of the water itself. One columnist writes:

Despite extensive searching, I wasn't able to find a single study that looked at whether the water from drinking foutains -- as opposed to the fountain itself -- is contaminated with germs and bacteria.

Indeed, the closest thing I found to any research on this area was an episode of the popular Food Network show Food Detectives that examined the issue. While far from a controlled scientific study, the show's staff took water samples from a number of drinking water fountains in both public and private locations then tested them for bacteria. Their limited testing found that while the surface of the fountains were indeed contaminated, the water itself was relatively clean. Indeed, they found the water from workplace water coolers they tested were far more contaminated than public fountains, something they theorized had to do with people putting their water bottles and mugs right up to the down-facing spigot.

[communities.canada.com]

I looked around a little, and I certainly wasn't convinced that drinking from a public fountain (without touching the spigot) puts me contact with any greater bacteria content than does touching the arm rests at the stadium, entering the bathroom, touching the pen to sign my ticket receipt, etc. That, and I have an immune system.

You're correct that touching is much more likely to lead to infection than drinking.

Jim Hyla

Jordan 04

Jim Hyla
There are many reports of this. Many have made the national news over the past few years; I'm surprised this is news now. Do a Google search of water fountains, bacteria and read to your hearts content.

Actually, I did try finding some information on this after TimV's initial post. (I make a regular practice of carrying around a water bottle, and frequently fill it up at public water fountains).

While it has been documented in some places that the fountain and spigot itself are hotbeds of bacteria, I have not seen anything speaking to the bacterial content of the water itself. One columnist writes:

Despite extensive searching, I wasn't able to find a single study that looked at whether the water from drinking foutains -- as opposed to the fountain itself -- is contaminated with germs and bacteria.

Indeed, the closest thing I found to any research on this area was an episode of the popular Food Network show Food Detectives that examined the issue. While far from a controlled scientific study, the show's staff took water samples from a number of drinking water fountains in both public and private locations then tested them for bacteria. Their limited testing found that while the surface of the fountains were indeed contaminated, the water itself was relatively clean. Indeed, they found the water from workplace water coolers they tested were far more contaminated than public fountains, something they theorized had to do with people putting their water bottles and mugs right up to the down-facing spigot.

[communities.canada.com]

I looked around a little, and I certainly wasn't convinced that drinking from a public fountain (without touching the spigot) puts me contact with any greater bacteria content than does touching the arm rests at the stadium, entering the bathroom, touching the pen to sign my ticket receipt, etc. That, and I have an immune system.

You're correct that touching is much more likely to lead to infection than drinking.

Drinking is often a precursor to touching of the sort that carries a high risk of infection if improperly practiced.
CK

Swampy
I know most of us had a hard time deciding which team, if any, to root for in the finals. We had a hard time rooting for either. But don't you think that a discussion of how vile, sick, and contaminated public water fountains are is going a bit too far? We don't discuss disease and unsanitary public facilities with regard to any other school, not even Harvard. If Duke & Notre Dame are like bacteria, then what is Harvard?

Pond Scum?

Swampy
I know most of us had a hard time deciding which team, if any, to root for in the finals. We had a hard time rooting for either. But don't you think that a discussion of how vile, sick, and contaminated public water fountains are is going a bit too far? We don't discuss disease and unsanitary public facilities with regard to any other school, not even Harvard. If Duke & Notre Dame are like bacteria, then what is Harvard?

Herpes

Bubonic Plague. Used to be deadly but it hasn't done much in a long time.