“World Champions….World Fu…”

Just kidding. My editor (aka Cory) would have my head for quoting Chase Utley’s now infamous word choice that was blasted unexpectedly throughout Citizens Bank Park, the entire city of Philadelphia, and the Greater Philadelphia Area (if you don’t know what he said, you probably don’t watch ESPN nearly enough). Turns out he didn’t warn anyone he was going to drop the F-bomb.

Who would have guessed it? Certainly not the people who doubted the Phils would even make the postseason, let alone become World Series champions. Earlier in the year I admitted that the Tampa Bay Rays were my biggest fear in the postseason. I think I speak for all Philly fans when I say that it’s rare that our biggest fears and worst nightmares fail to come true.

Never before has Cornell hockey opened a season in such dramatic fashion. Junior goalie Ben “Mr. 0” Scrivens turned away all 68 shots he faced this weekend to shutout both No. 9 Princeton and Quinnipiac. Yet Cornell managed just one goal on the road trip and the Red rode home with three points in perhaps its most difficult test of the year.

First and foremost, I’m feeling good right about now — presidential almost. It didn’t really set in until I talked to my mother Tuesday night. I haven’t heard my mother that joyous in a while, if ever. Even if Barack Obama doesn’t work out how everybody hopes and assumes he will, his election means so much in terms of how far we have come as African Americans and as America as a whole.

And for that alone, Tuesday was a great day in America.

But seeing as this is on the other side of the newspaper — which is the better side — I have to keep this column sports-related.

On Friday, I had a pretty spectacular night, I’m not going to lie. My costume was well planned and well executed (I was a member of the S.W.A.T team), my house threw a ridiculous party and no one got hurt. Halloween was shaping up to be epic — that is until I lost my wallet. Don’t ask me how it happened, especially since, I know, the party was at my own house. But somewhere between my bedroom and an ill-fated trip to College Town Pizza, my beloved wallet escaped me. I should preface this with two points. First, I do not own many possessions, so although to some of you the loss of a wallet may not seem like a big deal, to me, it was nothing short of tragedy. Second, there will eventually be a tie between my wallet woes and the wonderfully wide world of sports.

After a year of waiting (im)patiently, this day has finally come … IT’S HALLOWEEN!

As some of you faithful readers may remember, last Halloween I wrote a column with costume suggestions based on the NBA’s most intriguing characters. Now maybe I didn’t get my fill of baseball because I saw almost none of the postseason (I just died a little inside when I wrote that) or maybe it’s just that the weather conspired to keep baseball around longer for the express purpose of interfering with basketball season, but I’m not ready to say good bye and move on so quickly this year.

Wearing a blue sweatshirt, you trudge your way up to campus for a prelim, stopping at CTB for a medium coffee. You add an inch of skim milk and a packet of natural sugar —nah, make that two. You finish the trek up to the test you’re going to bomb, give it your best not-good-enough shot and feel inadequate all the way back home.

A week later, you’re nervously peeking through two fingers at the tiny numbers scribbled on the front page and it hits you: shock, delight and triple check that you are in fact holding your exam. An A!

Just as Charles Dickens authored A Tale of Two Cities, Cornell head coach Jim Knowles ’87 has penned A Tale of Two Seasons. A once promising season that started with an exciting victory over Bucknell, the Miracle at Lehigh and the homecoming triumph over Yale has turned as gray and gloomy as the late October Ithaca sky. With four games remaining on the 2008 docket, the Cornell football team (3-3, 1-2 Ivy) stands at .500 for the second time in two seasons. The final four contests present a great opportunity for the underclassmen to open some eyes this season and set the stage for next year.

So you lay there, with your stomach in a knot, motionless. The calls from your roommates don’t even earn a coherent response from you. If you decide to say anything, it really wouldn’t matter because it all comes out sounding like a bad radio signal. To your roommates, you might as well have not said anything.

As you lay there in the warmth of your comforter, you try to assemble your Sunday hangover survival kit.

Your phone, if you get the power to turn over and find it, is a remnant of last night’s successes and losses. Full with texts that you didn’t want to see, texts you accidentally sent, texts you don’t even understand or a combination of all three. Your next move, you move your arm around the bed, hoping, almost begging the remote to be in arm’s reach.

Sometimes, when I’ve had way too many jumbo diet Red Bulls (a practice fondly referred to by sports department disciples as “riding the bull”), and far too few hours of sleep, I sit in my chair in front of the one remaining sports-designated computer that doesn’t periodically erase the work you’ve been doing for the past hour and fantasize about what it must be like to be a real-life, honest to God, sports reporter. Ah, that Holy Land of the wannabe journalist, an oasis of steady (though pathetic) paychecks, adrenaline-filled Friday nights and weekly interviews with Jimmy Rollins and Allen Iverson. Yes, I am a Philly fan, nice of you to notice.

For the second consecutive year, the hockey team has opened its season with an exhibition tie. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that it’s going to be a tale of two seasons.

Cornell opened last year against Trois-Rivieres, University of Ottawa, and RIT, three teams arguably far weaker than the U.S. Under-18 Development Team. Disappointingly, however, Cornell finished an unimpressive 1-1-1 in those three games, registering just one goal in two of those contests.

This year, though, with only one coach’s practice under its belt heading into Saturday’s contest, Cornell looked far sharper and somewhat more disciplined than it did for good chunks of last season.