This was the celebration for Nashua South following the last Turkey Bowl played in 2019. The game, cancelled due to the pandemic last year and now this season as well, will have its future be a topic of convesation in the next year. (Telegraph file photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Is it fourth-and-goal for the annual Nashua North-South Turkey Bowl?

Now that the annual holiday football event has been cancelled for the second straight year due to the pandemic, school officials will eventually have to deal with questions about the game’s ultimate future.

“I can’t answer that right now,” said Nashua athletic director Lisa Gingras after she announced Friday afternoon in an emailed press release that the game was off for the second straight year due to COVID concerns and public health safety. “I think if you talk to the players, they don’t want to play in the game, but that’s a generalization. Some kids like it. … But what we have on the sideline for that game, it’s half. And if it’s not, it’s because (teams) dress every single kid, including the freshman.

“Only time will tell. It’s going to be honestly a year of conversations.”

One player who definitely wanted to play this year is Nashua South senior running back Josh Compoh. He wasn’t happy with Friday’s news that the game was off again.

“That was actually very heartbreaking,” Compoh said, “knowing that we possibly have only two weeks left of our high school football season.

“That’s a tradition that we’ve had. We put a lot of time and effort into preparing for the Turkey Bowl. It’s just a sad thing to lose.”

The game is not part of the NHIAA season; it’s an exhibition. The only other Thanksgiving game in the state is in Manchester.

“I know there’s going to be traditionalists that want the game,” Gingras said. “But a lot of the traditionalists that want the game don’t come.”

The game was moved to Thanksgiving Eve a few years ago to try to increase attendance, but as Gingras said, “It hasn’t increased it, it hasn’t decreased it.”

Thanksgiving football has been a Nashua tradition, either on the holiday or the night before, for several decades. For years it was the unified Nashua vs. Bishop Guertin, until The Split in 2004, when it became North vs. South, and Guertin was excluded. South leads the Turkey Bowl series 12-4, but the two teams also meet in the regular season.

But the major issue officials and coaches will have answer is whether the lag time between the end of the regular season and the holiday – as much as a month – are worth it. This year, it’s unlikely North or South will make the playoffs, and the regular season ends on Oct. 29.

That lag time hasn’t been an issue for South coach Scott Knight.

“I would have liked to play,” he said. “It’s not even so much the game. Wht I like the most about it is it gives us almost an extra month of practice, it gives us a chance to work with the freshmen on scout team and try some different things and look at our kids for next year. It gives us a good jump…

“It’s not even so much the game, it’s the practice leading up to it.”

There have been years when both teams have made the playoffs, or played in a title game and had to play less than a week later in the Turkey Bowl. Or one team would have two to three weeks off while the other was still playing leading up to the game.

“A month, that’s a long stretch to keep the kids’ interest, when we have wrestling starting and basketball starting and we have kids that play both,” North coach Dante Laurendi said. “So it’s really tough. With (COVID) getting worse, I understand it. …

“I know everyone talks about tradition but it’s not what it once was.”

Gingras also said that the game would mean an additional injury risk.

“I think it’s just going to come down to, do the kids and the coaches want to play the game?” Gingras said. “It means nothing. … COVID aside, it’s a health risk in and of itself. … You’re potentially three to four weeks after the end of your season, do you go through that process again?”

The game used to be a money maker, but no longer, Gingras said. “We make more during the North-South game in the regular season,” she said, “by far. By far.”

Would Gingras be open to a rotation with Bishop Guertin if the Cardinals were interested?

“I don’t know, and that’s conversations that we can have,” Gingras said. “It’s a matter of is there enough interest, is there enough reason to due it.”

To be determined.

“I’m sure when we get a chance, when the season settles down, and hopefully COVID settles down, and revist, and see,” Laurendi said.

(Telegraph correspondent Hector Longo contributed to this report.)