{"id":11422,"date":"2025-03-01T02:49:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T02:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/?p=11422"},"modified":"2025-03-01T14:00:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T14:00:44","slug":"birds-of-prey-our-best-showing-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/2025\/03\/birds-of-prey-our-best-showing-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds of Prey: Our Best Showing Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editors\u2019 Note: All photos are credited to Josie Kim (@Jkimphotography)

If you haven\u2019t been living under a rock, you\u2019ll have heard of last week\u2019s fierce hockey grudge match. That\u2019s right \u2013 I\u2019m talking about the brand-new Four Nations Face-Off, an international hockey tournament between NHL players from Canada, Finland, Sweden and the US, culminating with Canada beating the US in a dramatic, politically charged 3-2 overtime win. On a smaller scale, the Fieldston Eagles played the Riverdale Falcons on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many Fieldston students, sports games are very distant. Other than the occasional assembly announcement or email from athletic director Gus Ornstein, it\u2019s easy to ignore the athletic scene entirely. But for one night each year, the school gathers to cheer on our ice hockey team at the Birds of Prey Game against Riverdale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full transparency: despite my being a Junior, this was my first year attending the Birds of Prey Game. I\u2019m not much of a sports fan myself, but I decided that it could be a fun opportunity to take the pulse of both schools and see how our rivalry affects the game, the players and the crowd. Actually, I reached out to Riverdale\u2019s newspaper in advance about writing a joint piece on the game, but they had already assigned the article and seemed nonplussed about the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I arrived at Chelsea Piers half an hour before the game, and the stands were already beginning to fill up. Parents, students and teachers were gathered, talking to each other animatedly. There was a buzz in the air as both schools waited for the game to start, and as people kept crowding in, it seemed like the time would never come. While I can\u2019t comment on Riverdale faculty members, there was a respectable faculty turnout from Fieldston, including Assistant Principal for Student Life Rashad Randolph and Form V Dean Vincent Drybala.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Finally, at 7:00, the teams took the ice and were met with cheering and booing. From the very start, Riverdale exerted its dominance \u2013 they had the Riverdale Falcon with them, but our Fieldston Eagle was nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a 15-minute practice session as the crowd sang and grooved along to classic high-energy songs like Party Rockers, Seven-Nation Army and AC\/DC\u2019s Thunderstruck, and then we were off to the races. Unfortunately, not even a minute after the game began, Riverdale scored, starting the night off strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riverdale got another goal before Fieldston managed to score its first, but the applause was all the more energetic because of it. Fieldston\u2019s first goal was scored by Luca Loconte (Form III) and met with chants of \u201cHe\u2019s a Freshman!\u201d The points began to go back and forth: Fieldston scored again, then both teams scored in quick succession, followed by Riverdale getting another goal. At the end of the first period, Fieldston was down 4-3 \u2013 and we had already scored as many goals as we did in last year\u2019s game. But going into the second period, Fieldston wasn\u2019t giving up.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Once again, Riverdale scored a demoralizingly fast goal, and even when Fieldston was on offense, the Falcons\u2019 defense held strong \u2013 three close shot attempts, one after another, were blocked by Riverdale\u2019s goalie. Nonetheless, on the fourth try, Jack McCummings (Form V) finally managed to score, bringing it to 5-4. The crowd went wild, knowing that we\u2019d managed to score two goals in a row earlier and seeing victory within reach, but it wasn\u2019t meant to be. 20 minutes later, Riverdale broke out of an intense back-and-forth with back-to-back goals, and even though we managed to score once more with 8:30 remaining, it was too little, too late. The final score was 7-5 Riverdale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhoever has the best goaltender and defense is going to win,\u201d said Avi Subramanian, one of two freshmen on the team. And he was right \u2013 there were a lot of shots made on both goals, but at the end of the day, Riverdale simply blocked more of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this loss is disappointing, it\u2019s also not a bad showing for Fieldston\u2019s Varsity Ice Hockey team. Since the Birds of Prey Game began in 2022, our ice hockey teams have clashed nine times, and this is the second-closest we\u2019ve gotten to beating them, with the closest being a 5-5 tie in \u201823-\u201924. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Unfortunately, following the 5-2 loss to Riverdale on Wednesday in the Big Apple Hockey League playoffs, Boys Varsity Ice Hockey is done for the season. However, we still put up a good showing \u2013 and there\u2019s always next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go Eagles!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editors\u2019 Note: All photos are credited to Josie Kim (@Jkimphotography) If you haven\u2019t been living under a rock, you\u2019ll have heard of last week\u2019s fierce hockey grudge match. That\u2019s right \u2013 I\u2019m talking about the brand-new Four Nations Face-Off, an international hockey tournament between NHL players from Canada, Finland, Sweden and the US, culminating with Canada beating the US in a dramatic, politically charged 3-2 overtime win. On a smaller scale, the Fieldston Eagles played<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":11423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[347,318,317],"tags":[],"coauthors":[649],"class_list":["post-11422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-news","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-28-at-9.48.45-PM-e1740797373786.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11426,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11422\/revisions\/11426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11422"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}