On Tap with ... Will MacDonald

Junior Will MacDonald, a mechanical and aerospace engineer hailing from Georgia, is a forward on the men’s ice hockey team. The Tigers are currently placed seventh in the ECAC, coming off of a tough loss against No. 20 Yale. After learning about his singing talents last year from former teammate Matt Arhontas ’11, the ‘Prince’ decided to sit down with MacDonald to hear about how his singing career is shaping up, his mechanical engineering feats and his rare fights on the ice.

Q: In last year’s "On Tap" with teammate Matt Arhontas ’11, you were called out as the quirkiest teammate for your constant singing. He said you were supposed to take singing lessons. Why didn’t that happen?

A: It fell through. I really looked into it. There’s a girl on the band here who said she’d give me lessons, but I’m so busy here that I thought it would be better to just get the karaoke game on my Xbox.

Q: What’s the most embarrassing song on your iPod?

A: I’m embracing it now, but any song that has to do with Glee, and I have a lot of them.

Q: Where are you from, and what is it like there?

A: I’m from Alpharetta, Georgia. It’s a city north of Atlanta in the suburbs. It's hot and sticky, but a good, wholesome town to grow up in.

Q: What was your “welcome to college” moment?

A: When I scored less than a 20 on my first Phyiscs 103 test.

Q: What is the greatest highlight of your sports career?

A: Winning the national championship in Juniors in my second year with the Indiana Ice. The Ice is an intermediate team between high school and college. For hockey, they like college players to be older and more mature, so it’s a stepping point between high school and college. They were the best years of my life. Well, the easiest years at least.

Q: How did you start playing ice hockey?

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

A: I moved to Alpharetta when I was six, and we were one of the first families in the cul-de-sac. The next week, a family moved in the house next door, and one of the kids was my age. They were from Michigan, and they loved hockey. Before I knew it I had roller blades strapped to my feet, playing hockey everyday.

Q: What’s the strangest thing that’s happened to you during a game?

A: I had a little kid spit at me walking onto the ice, calling us names. This was in the Midwest, playing a team called the Lincoln Stars, and their arena is known for a crazy atmosphere and crazy fans. Kids lined the entrance to the ice and said pretty rude things to us.

Q: How many fights do you get in on the ice throughout a season?

A: Well you know, I’m more of a lover, not a fighter. In my whole career I’ve been in two. One was me just getting my butt whooped. But I’m proud to say I fought the toughest kid in the league, and I would have gotten my face pounded off if the referee didn’t step in.

Q: If you didn’t play hockey, what sport would you play?

A: Ping pong.

Q: Who is your quirkiest teammate and why?

A: [Junior defenseman] Michael Sdao. He’s such a fan of the sport and he gets so into it everyday in practice and games. Last game we had, he was given the team award of best player for the game, which is a kiddie hat. He was so excited, he picked up a cooler over his head and threw it. He’s a true hockey fan through and through, and he was so excited. He did a lot of weird things.

Q: Does the team have any odd rituals?

A: Odd in that our [sophomore] goalie Sean Bonar has to always sprint around the rink, either away or home. Our entire team, after we’re done doing off-ice warm-up, cheers for him as loud as we can like he’s finishing the last lap of a marathon.

Q: What’s the best part about being an athlete on campus?

A: Isn’t it obvious? The girls.

Q: What’s the worst part about being an athlete on campus?

A: Being labeled as an athlete and being seen as the dumb jock.

Q: What’s been your favorite class at Princeton so far?

A: My MAE mechanical design course [MAE 321: Engineering Design]. Pretty much, we design things on the computer and build them in the MAE shop. My group took first place in the last project because we built the strongest, lightest crane of the eight cranes. Only two didn’t break, and ours was the lightest. It was even better because we made ours look like a tiger. It was my proudest moment here.