You know something. I always thought dogs laid eggs, and I learned something today..

Today is the first day of spring and we practiced in a blizzard.

If that doesn't sum up my life in Plattsburgh these past four years I don't know what does.

So after four games in a week we are back to the daily grind. One more day of practice and then it is our home opener for the "Battle of Champy". I realized the other day that I keep mentioning Champy as if he is a household name. Unfortunately he is not so let me explain myself.

Champy, also known as Cryptozoology his scientific name (I'm not making this up), is the lake monster that lives in Lake Champlain. According to Wikipedia, which everyone knows is always right, there have been over 300 sightings of Champy since 1883 when Sheriff Nathan H. Mooney first reported seeing a “…gigantic water serpent about 50 yards away” that had “round white spots inside its mouth” and “appeared to be about 25 to 30 feet in length”. I know this might all strangely familiar to a certain lake monster that is located across the Atlantic Ocean but I assure you Mooney's sighting was 50 years before anyone even uttered "Nessie's" name.

So suck it Scotland.

Champy's legend grew so much that P.T. Barnum, as in the guy that started Ringling Brothers Barnum and Baily Circus, put a $50,000 bounty on Champy so he could put it in his World's Fair. Lucky for us, no one was successful and the legend lives on.

The only known photo of Champy was taken in 1977 by Sandra Mansi and is pictured above.



Today Champy can be found throughout the area, including Vermont's only minor league baseball team who are the "Lake Monsters".

And now on Wednesday night SUNY Plattsburgh will take on St.Mike's for the "Battle of Champy", although I'm not sure they are aware that's what we are calling it. We don't have a trophy which is a shame, but this isn't about hardware. This is about battling for the right to claim ownership over a mythological creature that most likely was discovered by an alcoholic sheriff who was half in the bag when he spotted a tree branch in the lake and thought it was a monster.

And for that, I thank god.

-DeFran