Hello All,

I know many of you know Bob and Arleen Stagat from the NCAA tournaments they have been attending, and also just from the list discussions. For the past year, Bob has been fighting a vicious form of brain cancer and I just got word from Arleen that he lost his battle on August 10th at the young age of 63. Arleen suggested you all might want to know, so here I am.

Just a few comments if I could.

Many of you may recall Bob's interesting commentaries on RPI hockey ... he was a rabid fan of college hockey and RPI in particular, having gone to undergrad and grad school there from 1960 to 1969. He was particularly proud of his tutoring of the team in the late 60s, a very down time for RPI hockey, and then receiving an autographed stick from the team several years later (in Florida) when they finally beat Cornell. 

Bob received his PhD in elementary particle physics from RPI and for most of his career has been at Mission Research in Santa Barbara, CA.  We knew each other as undergrad physics majors at RPI, I went to Illinois, he stayed and got to watch 5 more years of RPI hockey!

He was an avid biker as was Arleen. He used to ride to work every day, a distance of about 10 miles and come up to our area (San Luis Obispo) to ride in longer rides. He also was an avid skier.

We had lost touch, and in 1994 when I joined Hockey-L, and made one of my first posts I got an email from him saying "Is this the same Tony Buffa whom I went to school with at RPI from 1960-64?" ... and we reconnected, turns out we had been living only 90 miles apart for 20 years!! In the time since, we have gotten together with he and Arleen many times and always had a great time. In particular, my only NCAA tournament in Anaheim in 1999 was a real blast.

Not much else to say, except I will miss him, his wit, humor and enjoyment of life and hockey!!

Cheers to all,

Tony Buffa
RPI '64