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Is Guertin-Bedford hockey this soon really a gift?

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Dec 20, 2017

Telegraph Sports Reporter Tom KIng.

Here’s a few tids and bits as those shopping days wind down to a precious few:

First, sometimes the schedule early in a season can lull you to sleep. You think that there’s no really big games so soon. Well, in high school hockey, guess again. The Bishop Guertin boys hockey team hosts Bedford on Wednesday night at Skate 3, and it’s a shame for the second year in a row these two Division I powers have to square off so soon. Same for Bedford and Concord, a game played a week ago – won by the Tide, 4-3 – and BG vs. Concord, a game set for this Saturday, also at Skate 3. At least Guertin and Concord play each other again to end the regular season; Wednesday’s is the only BG-Bedford matchup. Last year the two teams tied on the Wednesday before Christmas in a game where you could tell they were both still feeling their way. Bedford routed the Cards just over two months later in the semis. In the 2015-16 season, the two teams played a classic at Skate 3 – in mid-February. That’s how they should schedule it, but we’ll enjoy Wednesday’s matchup while we have it.

— Will we ever be done with the hoopla over the end of the Patriots-Steelers game? The NFL is not likely to change the “survive the ground” rule, but it conjures up memories of an old controversy some 20-25 years ago. Back then NFL receivers just had to possess the ball in the end zone for a split second for a TD, even if it got knocked out of their hands. It caused quite a firestorm in late-season games, for certain.

— Good to see that the Campbell High School came on board in the Chick-fil-A Nashua Holiday Basketball Tournament to be the eighth team. The idea of a combined North-South team of fringe players wasn’t bad to fill out the tourney, but certainly wasn’t ideal. Last year there were just six teams and North and South had first round byes. This year the tourney gained Keene and Merrimack but lost Souhegan, which is playing in the Blue Devil Classic in Salem, thus had seven teams.

Also, in the boys tournament, you won’t have a rematch of last year’s Thornton-Merrimack final. Instead, the two are n the same bracket and will actually play each other in the first round. Have to credit Nashua athletic director Lisa Gingras, tourney director John Penkala and Co. for how they have managed to squeeze once again two tourneys into three days in one venue.

— A couple of MLB thoughts: One, while everyone is up in arms over Red Sox VP of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski’s seemingly slow movement toward securing a power hitter may be due to one big circumstance: Dombrowski clearly wants to sign J.D. Martinez, if possible. Why hasn’t that happened? Simple. Who is the player’s agent? Why, Scott Boras. If history has taught us anything, Boras clients don’t normally sign until mid to late January, maybe even early February, so as to maximize leverage. So who knows how long it will take.

Meanwhile, Milford High School alum Neal Huntington, the Pittsburgh Pirates general manager, should be applauded if he can get the Yankees to take pitcher Gerrit Cole in return for outfield prospect Clint Frazier or a facsimile there of.

Cole had an earned run average over 4.00 last year, and in the National League that’s like a 5.00 ERA in the AL. He gave up 31 homers in 33 starts; imagine how many he’d give up in hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium. Due to elbow woes, he’s simply not the same pitcher who won 19 games in 2015.

Frazier, meanwhile, has incredible bat speed and if the Yankees consider him to be a sixth outfielder just because they’re stuck with Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner, shame on them. Go for it, Neal. Kudos to you if you can pull this off.

Tom King can be reached at 594-1251, tking@nashuatelegraph.com., or @Telegraph_TomK.

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