It isn't often that the Yale Hockey Team makes it to the ECAC tournament and it's not often that I make it to their home "field," Ingalls Rink, which is too bad. It's a great place to see hockey: compact, intimate, intense.
I did make it over there last weekend, walking over from my house to see the Bulldogs beat up on Brown: 4-2 Friday night and 2-0 Saturday, to advance to the next round, up in Albany.
"The Yale Whale" (the building is really shaped like one) seats only 3,486 fans, which is a problem of late, given the excellence and popularity of this year's team. Hey, why don't they just move the games across town to the New Haven Coliseum? Oh wait, never mind...
It's true they are doing some extensive renovations of the old place, but I don't see much room for a lot of extra seats. Between periods the other night I was reading the big board outside, listing the improvements upcoming. Here's one I couldn't help but notice: "new vomitory entrance to visiting team bench."
I guess I shouldn't have been taken aback. Hockey is a violent sport. Vomit is part of the game.
But still: a vomitory? And no vomitory for the home team? What kind of business is that?
So I asked Steve Conn, the always helpful Yale Associate Athletics Director, what was up with this vomitory. He did a little research and informed me that this vomitory is not a place for hockey teams to vomit.
He sent me the three definitions of vomitory:
1) something that induces vomiting.
2) an aperture through which matter is discharged.
3) one of the tunnel-like passages of an amphitheater or stadium between the seats and the outside wall or passageway.
Conn said the third definition is what applies for Ingalls. "It's not what you're thinking," he told me. "It just means the visiting team can go from the lockers to their bench."
Oh. You see what you can learn when you go to Ingalls and start nosing around?
Anyway, I had a fun time at the games. The Yale and Brown bands entertained during all of the time stoppages, interspersed with some hits from the overly-loud recorded sound system. I could've done without the latter noise, except I did enjoy the Doors' "Peace Frog," with its immortal line: "blood in the streets in the town of New Haven." Jim Morrison wrote that after he got beat up by the cops at the old New Haven Arena, the town's original hockey joint.
It all adds up. doesn't it?

I have a thing about Jane Fonda. I've enjoyed her movies for many years, even "Barbarella." I agree with most of her political stances, especially opposing the Vietnam War.
However, it's obvious she was foolish to pose next to a damaged American aircraft, smiling, alongside some North Vietnamese about 35 years ago. She admitted this long ago. That was just a little too much.
But as Fonda was preparing for her return to Broadway after being away for decades, to star in "33 Variations," some of those Vietnam veterans who can never forgive her were back at it, picketing the theater. They have every right to do it; I just think it's time to move on.
Anyway, I recently read in the New York Times that Fonda now has a blog. You can see it if you go to janefonda.com.
And so I splashed around in her blog for awhile. Her first posting, from Jan. 5, revealed her former husband, Ted Turner, is a Luddite who hates computers and never uses a cell phone.
She also talked about "Tulea, my little 8-pound soulmate." Tulea is her dog. I know about Tulea, having seen Fonda carry the critter into the room when she made an appearance at the Yale Bookstore a couple of years ago.
Fonda at age 71 --71! -- is still interesting. Sure, she's self-obsessed, but still fun to look at and fun to listen to.
Her blog is a bit much. Here's her lead from Feb. 17: "OMG! I kid you not and I twittered about it earlier, but no kidding, during curtain call Tulea escaped from her dog sitter and came out on stage."
Jane Fonda, you are not 14.
As a blogger myself, I try not to be too self-indulgent. I think Fonda has fallen into that trap. I wish she would go back to the tone of her first blog, which was insightful and interesting.
As for Fonda the woman and Fonda the actress, she will always be interesting, and fun to follow.