Wednesday TigerBlog - A Place To Call Home
October 08, 2025 | Tiger Blog
You know what is one of the worst feelings in modern times, something that those who came before us could never imagine?
You know. It's that feeling when you finish binging a show that you really, really liked.
It creates a very bittersweet emotion. You're so invested in what happens and how it's going to wrap everything up, while at the same time you are dreading the end.
This just happened for TigerBlog, who finished the 67-episode run of an Australian show called "A Place To Call Home." It definitely has "Downton Abbey" vibes to it, with an old-money aristocratic family clinging to its estate (Ash Park, in this case) while the world around all of them changes.
This show is set in the 1950s and mixes in some pretty intense themes, with the main character of the show a Holocaust survivor, several members of the local community still working through their own traumas and a gay community at a time when it was illegal.
It also has one of the absolute most villainous characters you'll ever see in any movie or show (and hopefully not in real life). Her name is Regina, and unlike TB's late, great Aunt Regina, she is not sweet and loving in any way.
TB watched the first two seasons on BritBox, home of most of the TV shows he watches. This time, though, the show was first cancelled after its second season, and Season 2 ended with all of the loose ends tied up. And then?
It was picked up by a different network, which first filmed a different ending to Season 2 and then had four more seasons after that. TB had to subscribe to Acorn TV to watch the rest, but it was worth it.
So now what to watch? Well, he'll find something on BritBox or Acorn. He always does.
Of course, with 10 players from England on the Princeton field hockey team, TB has a front-row seat to something of a British reality show. The episode this past Friday was a great one.
The Tigers played six of their first seven games this year at their own place to call home — Bedford Field — but they are now in a stretch of four straight road games. It began with a 2-1 win at Maryland two Sundays ago and then continued with another 2-1 win, this one at Yale Friday night.
Up next will be an interesting road trip, with a bus ride to Dartmouth for a Saturday afternoon game and then a plane ride to Chicago, where a game with No. 1 Northwestern awaits Monday.
Princeton is currently ranked eighth in the NFHCA coaches' poll and sixth in the RPI.
It's certainly a fun group to be around. Here's an example:
The team went up and back to Yale Friday, with a 5 pm start time in New Haven. The team got back onto the bus for the ride home around 7:45, or shortly after the Princeton-Columbia football game began on ESPNU.
The team would end up rolling into the Caldwell parking lot (the place it calls home) around the time the game ended. In between, TB sat in the third row of the bus with the game on his laptop, while a large group of the players gathered around another one in the back of the bus.
From his seat, TB could hear a mixture of English accents who were asking questions about the rules of football and American accents who were explaining. One of the highlights came after a fair catch on a punt, which led to this actual exchange:
English accent: Why didn't they tackle him on that punt?
American accent: Well, if you know you're going to get tackled right away, you can raise your hand and then they can't hit you if you catch the ball.
English accent: Whose idea was that?
It was like that for pretty much the entire ride back. At one point, TB asked one of the English players if she liked American football, and she said that it moved too slowly for her. She also added that her family consists of big rugby fans.
The P.S. of the story is that TB ran into Princeton head football coach Bob Surace Monday and told him the story. Surace's response: "That's okay. I don't know the rules to field hockey either."
Well played, Coach Surace.