I, too, am terribly saddened to hear of Bob's passing.  I remember meeting Bob and Arleen at the Hockey-L dinner in Boston and enjoyed talking with them.

My condolences, Arleen.  My thoughts are with you.

Sara
SLU '77



 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: [log in to unmask]
> 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