Orel Family

It was late August, 1976. Every year after all the kids returned home from summer camp or wherever we'd been all summer, my family would take a short road trip vacation. My older brother was going to be a senior in high school, so this year it was time to visit colleges. Our vacation consisted of visits to several colleges in New England: schools like  Amherst  and  Wesleyan . They seemed so tiny. And somewhere in there, we visited Yale . By the time our tour guide got us to Ezra Stiles College , I was sold. "This is where I want to go to college."  Was it Saarinen's building? It was the coolest dorm I'd seen, for sure. Whatever the reason, from that moment on I had one central purpose to my high school years and that was to get in to Yale. In hindsight, I can say that was a profoundly awful purpose; one that I don't recommend for anyone today. My brother was not admitted to Yale. Nor Amherst. Nor Wesleyan. He "settled" for Cornell , my mother...

15.5 seconds remained in the second period. At center ice, Yale's Clinton Bourbonais banged his stick against the ice several times as he waited for the face-off. Just a few minutes earlier, Bourbonais had taken a bad penalty, giving opposing Quinnipiac an extended two-man advantage. But Yale had survived it unscathed, and looking toward center ice, I smiled. Bourbonais looked ready. Despite an almost frenetic pace, including extended two-man advantages for each team, and nearly 50 total shots on goal, the National Championship game between Yale and Quinnipiac had yet to produce a goal. Bourbonais won the face-off. Yale's defense played the puck in to the Quinnipiac end. I allowed myself a brief sigh of relief. Yale appeared to be feeling the effects of the game's pace, and the puck being down in the other end meant there wouldn't be any late bad surprises; it'd be no worse than tied going in to the third period. The puck came to Quinnipiac's All-Amer...

I went to Yale . In 165 prior blog posts I've never mentioned that, but it is true. Boola Boola. I played in the band at Yale. In the winter, we had the Yale Winter Wonder Band (an offshoot of the more celebrated Yale Precision Marching Band ); we'd follow the hockey team around. At home games, we'd take the ice between the 2nd and 3rd periods, and play a mini-show before the Zamboni came out. I got a car before junior year, and drove band members and instruments to Dartmouth and Harvard and Brown and Providence, and, most memorably, to Cornell. I'd drive, and the backseat passengers would make signs to put in the windows for people in other cars to see. The signs weren't always G-rated, but only one or two people actually tried to run us off the road. During my time in the YPMB. The hat is long gone, along with the hair. Our hockey team was always good, but, it seemed every year we'd come in 9th place in the 17-team ECAC, and only the top 8 made the ...