Question & Answer with Chris Owen

Recently, 'Prince' senior writer Sarah Kiernan sat down with junior forward Chris Owen of the men's hockey team.

'Prince': So, are you mad that I'm late?

Chris Owen: No, not at all. I was trying to figure out how I was going to find you, thinking that I had no idea who I was looking for.

P: When did you start playing hockey?

CO: Pretty much when I was about three years old. My father played at Harvard and I have an older brother who's three years older who started kind of late, so I just started when he did. He was about six or seven so I just kind of tagged along.

P: Were you always a forward? Did you ever play a different position?

CO: I was always a forward, I was too small to play anything else.

P: Where did you grow up?

CO: Just outside Boston, in the suburbs.

P: So hockey's big there?

CO: Yeah, it's bigger than it is down here. We have the Bruins, but that's not as big. College hockey's a big thing up there with the Beanpot Tournament, so I always went to that growing up.

P: What other sports did you play?

CO: I played football for four years in high school and I played golf for five years.

P: Did you think about playing either of those in college?

CO: I wanted to play golf here, but it was in the fall and spring so it was pretty tough to do in the fall with hockey. I can still go out and hack it around in the spring.

P: A lot of hockey players seem to play golf. Why is that?

CO: It's kind of a similar motion. Maybe because hockey's a winter sport and the professional guys all have summers off, so they have to find something to do.

P: Do you feel like playing hockey messes up your golf swing at all?

CO: Actually, I shoot different ways. In hockey I shoot lefty and I swing a golf club righty. Most people on our team who shoot lefty also swing a golf club lefty, so I'm strange like that.

P: You went to Noble & Greenough in Boston. Is that a prep school?

CO: Yeah.

P: Do you play against some of the same guys in college that you saw in high school?

CO: Yeah, there's a lot of them. Like, from my team, there were two kids that went to BC, one that went to BU, another kid we play against at Dartmouth, another kid went to Yale. There are a ton of kids in our league. Pretty much, in the Boston area, most of the kids go to the prep schools rather than the public schools, so the better competition is in the prep schools. There are a lot of Ivy League kids, a lot of ECAC Hockey East kids.

P: Does it feel strange to play against your former teammates?

CO: Yeah, it's a little weird. The only one I've really played against is Mike Murray from Dartmouth.

P: Do you hit each other a little harder than normal?

CO: Well, I caught him pretty good once this year, but it's nothing personal, it's just fun.

P: Why did you decide to come to Princeton?

CO: Obviously academically it's good. I looked at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, and part of the reason is where you're going to fit better on the hockey team. I fit better on the Princeton hockey team than the Harvard team.

P: Do you remember scoring your first goal here?

CO: Yeah, it was my freshman year, the only goal I scored my freshman year. It was against Harvard, halfway through the year. It was pretty exciting, not that I have anything against Harvard, but that's where I used to go to the games, because my Dad went there, so it was kind of nice to get it playing against them.

P: Do you have a nickname on the team?

CO: They call me Pig. And GM.

P: Can you explain that to me?

CO: There is no reason.

P: None?

CO: No reason.

P: What are road trips like for you guys?

CO: It depends where you're going. Like this weekend we went to Clarkson/St. Lawrence, which was eight hours away, which sucks. It's not that bad going up, you just sit on the bus with 25 of your friends and watch movies. Once you're up there, you pretty much just sit around all day until the games. Bus rides home are terrible.

P: Why?

CO: If you lose you just sit there and everybody's in a bad mood, you don't really get to play movies anymore, and an eight-hour ride home is a brutal bus ride.

P: Do you guys ever play pranks on each other?

CO: Well, sometimes you'll come into the locker room to find your stuff in the shower or your stick broken in half. There's nothing too bad, you can't really destroy someone's equipment, it doesn't go over so well. Sticks are replaceable pretty easy.

P: You're leading the team right now with 16 goals, and last year you had a career high of three. So what happened there? What's with the jump?

CO: I don't know, it's a pretty big jump! Part of it is definitely playing time. I've been fortunate to get a lot of playing time this year, I've been on the power play pretty much the entire year. I've been playing with Mike Patton, who's a good player and we play well together. We're able to know where each other are and we blend well together and make some plays. Part of it is just luck. I mean, it's not all luck, but you get a couple breaks and then that gives you confidence and, you know, once a couple go in, more keep going in and hopefully they'll keep going for a couple more weeks.

P: Does it ever get frustrating to be scoring a lot of goals and you guys aren't winning the games?

CO: Yeah, it sucks, to be honest with you. From a personal standpoint, you just try to do as much as you can to help the team. The whole year has been frustrating and disappointing because we haven't played well at all, we're like 3-23-1. There are two different teams that can be 3-23. You can get blown out every game and every game's, like, 7-1, and I think maybe at that time, not that you get used to it, but you kind of expect it. We've probably been blown out maybe three or four times this whole year, so it's like every game you're in it and not once, or maybe once or twice, have we gotten the break where instead of them getting the next goal, you get the next goal, and then that changes everything.

P: What's your best memory from hockey in general or Princeton hockey?

CO: Umm, I think probably this year, we played up at Harvard, it was the game right before exams, and we'd lost to Brown right before, 4-0. We played at Harvard which is always special for me because I'm going home and playing before all my family and friends, and we ended up winning, 2-1, and I had both goals, so that was pretty nice.

P: What do you think your worst loss was this season?

CO: There's been a lot (laughs). Worst loss... I don't know, this past weekend was pretty brutal. We lost 9-4 to St. Lawrence, just got absolutely killed, they out-shot us, 60-25. This was probably the worst weekend. Then we played Clarkson and lost, 5-2, they out-shot us 40-12. Although we were never winning and the game was never close, just to get blown out like that and not really have a chance was awful.

P: Do you want to play professional hockey?

CO: No, I'm too small.

P: Any thoughts as to what you want to do?

CO: I want to do something in finance. That's what I've done the last two summers, I've done internships.

P: Is there any particular reason you wear number 10?

CO: I wore number 19 the first two years and didn't play particularly well, so I figured that I might as well change numbers and hopefully change some luck. Pavel Bure was my favorite player growing up, and he wore number 10. He was the guy I liked, so I figured that I needed a new number.

P: Were you a Bruins fan growing up?

CO: Yeah. Well, not too much. I'm a Red Sox fan, that's my sport.

P: Ooh, I'm a Yankees fan.

CO: Ugh, the evil empire!

P: Do you have any superstitions?

CO: None.

P: None?

CO: They're terrible. I always made sure I didn't have them. People get so wrapped up in them and if you don't get to do that thing it throws you off, so I always did things differently so that I would never have them.

P: I was going to ask if you had any rituals to get you pumped up for games, but I'm going to guess no...

CO: Nothing, nothing. DMX in my Walkman, that's it.

P: What's your major?

CO: Poli-econ.

P: What are the best and worst classes you've taken at Princeton?

CO: Best and worst classes... Econ 302 was pretty terrible. That's the intermediate micro. Best class, umm... I took political economy of sports, which was pretty good. Also Causes of War. That was pretty good, I took that last semester.

P: I saw that you like to play video games. What's your favorite game?

CO: NHL '94 on Sega.

P: Why '94?

CO: I don't know, it's just old school. That's what I have in my dorm. Me and my roommate just play it nonstop.

P: How much time do you spend playing video games on average?

CO: I'd say we usually play four best-of-seven series a week, so that's, uh... we get a good 25 games in or so a week.]

P: Did you watch Joe Millionaire?

CO: I watched the last episode.

P: Who did you want to win?

CO: It was the worst show I've ever seen.

P: Most guys liked it because they liked to make fun of him.

CO: Well I never saw it until the last hour, so I didn't really know what was going on. It wasn't very good. I watched the Bachelorette, though! I saw that one.

P: Can you believe that Ryan won?

CO: I didn't have a personal preference. I was hoping that she would go with me.

P: So you would date Trista Rehn?

CO: Yeah (laughs). I'd probably clear my schedule for her.

P: Who should have won album of the year last night?

CO: What was up for it?

(list)

The Eminem Show should have won.

P: Do you know who won?

CO: No idea.

P: Norah Jones, Come Away with Me. She won five Grammies, what's your favorite song by her?

CO: By Norah Jones? I don't know any of her songs. I don't even know who she is. I'm tone deaf, so if you want to put that in... I could listen to a song a hundred times, and at the end I wouldn't be able to tell you one sentence from it. I can't get the beat of a song, and I can't remember the words; I can't sing, I can't learn words. Because I can't get the beat of a song, I can't get the whole thing.

P: So are you a good dancer?

CO: No, terrible.

P: What's the best thing about going to college in New Jersey?

CO: I like the snow. People say 'ugh,' but I like the snow. I guess spring comes earlier too, so that's nice.