Bishop Guertin coach Brad Kreick, center, and assistant Mike Paquette watch Brooke Paquette drive to the hoop during the Cards' first practice Monday of the 2021-22 season. They open up at BG vs. Bedford on Dec. 10. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Change is never easy. Just ask local high school boys and girls basketball coaches.

They began practices for the 2021-22 season on Monday, and first are adjusting to a new schedule that has the season, for some, starting earlier than usual, and for all ending way sooner than usual – the finals are tentatively set for Feb. 19 for Divisions I and II, two to three weeks earlier than normal – which means some weeks with three games. The tournaments for those two divisions are tentatively set to start Feb. 8-9.

Then again, after what they dealt with for the 2020-21 season, it’s not that bad. The teams will mostly all open up the regular season on Friday, Dec. 10 – which gives them about 10 days of tryouts then practice.

“It puts a huge pressure on planning ahead,” said Bishop Guertin girls coach Brad Kreick, who at times has had the same amount of preseason time in the past but was able to scrimmage more.

So Kreick has done just that, and discovered that in the seasons that would normally end the regular schedule portion by late February and then have the tournament go to the second weekend in March, the Cards would have 55-60 practices. This year? Try just 31.

“It will feel like a WNBA season,” Kreick said. “It’s a grind for these kids. I’m not a fan of this schedule one bit.”

On the other hand, some remember the difficulty of last year’s pandemic shortened season which didn’t even start until the middle of January – if you didn’t have to go on pause.

“Honestly, I’ll take 10 days over last year’s situation,” Nashua South girls coach John Bourgeois said. “We had multiple quarantines and then two days of practice before the first game against Hollis Brookline.”

Indeed, the Panthers didn’t even open their season until early February, played about a 10 game schedule before the tournament began in early March.

It’s even more of an adjustment for boys hoop teams, who usually didn’t start the season until a week or so before Christmas. New Hollis Brookline coach Marty Edwards, formerly of Alvirne, says he’ll have to be creative, starting with last night’s tryouts.

“We’re going to have to use these three days of tryouts as practices,” Edwards said. “It does force you to simplify things a bit. You don’t want to make things too complicated for them.”

But at the same time, it creates a sense of urgency, Edwards said.

“Absolutely it does,” he said. “Less practices, less time to recover. We’re knd of training under fire. The games will be a great classroom for us.”

“This is a tough challenge but at least we have more than two days to lay a foundation down,” Bourgeois said. “I think it’s a good challenge to have.

“We definitely had to simplify and rethink how we teach, especially with it being almost a brand new group of players this season. But we are looking forward to it and are just happy we made it to Day One.”

Kreick said that he would have rather seen teams be allowed to start practice earlier in November, rather than take the three week-plus down time after soccer, field hockey, volleyball, etc. He noted that in January there are as many as 13 games, with three games a week in four of the month’s near five weeks.

“I’ll tell you what,” Kreick said. “I wouldn’t want to be a first-year coach with a young team. You just don’t have enough teaching time.”

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