Merrimack and Hollis Brookline-Derryfield used to face each other in the Backyard Brawl Holiday Tournament at Conway Arena. Now they'll join forces as a tri-op for this season, and the tournament will still be played later this month with four teams. (Telegraph file photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Game On. Or rather, Games On.

When it was learned late this fall that the Hollis Brookline-Derryfield ice hockey co-op was merging with Merrimack to form a “tri-op” with Merrimack as the lead school, the thought was that would take the annual “Backyard Brawl” Holiday tourney at Conway Arena off the schedule, since it was the Warriors and their former head coach, Joel Sanborn, who ran it.

But guess again. According to HB athletic director Brian Bumpus, the tournament will still be on, going three days – Dec. 26, 27, 28 – with just four teams, Merrimack-HB-Derryfield, Nashua South-Pelham, Nashua North-Souhegan, and Alvirne-Milford. It will be its fourth straight year.

“It’s on,” Bumpus said. “Conway’s been great, understanding of our situation, and we’ll go with the four teams.”

The schedule will be announced as soon as everything is finalized, Bumpus said, but it will be two games each day. The HB booster club will do the bulk of the organizing and running the event, he said.

Merrimack coach Dan Belliveau will be the head coach of the tri-op and will be assisted by former HBDS assistant Mark Cahill. Sanborn resigned last April, and sources say it’s likely if the HBDS co-op remained in place, Bumpus said that he and Cahill spoke to Belliveau and Merrimack about keeping the tourney going, and they were all for it. Plus the ice time had been all set.

THE TRI-OP’S ORIGINS

How did this all happen? Bumpus and the HB administration were going over the projections for numbers for the co-op and saw that the most they’d likely have for this season were seven players from HB and four from Derryfield for a total of 11 – and less than 10 skaters.

“Those numbers,” Bumpus said, “were not sustainable for a season.”

Perfectly understandable. Thus through back channels – Sanborn talking with Belliveau, two former Nashua High players from the 1980s, for one – the idea of the tri-op was formed. Merrimack looked OK numbers wise for this year, Bumpus said, but the impression was after that things might have gotten dicey.

“Joel still wanted to make sure we’d have a program,” Bumpus said.

Thus the concept, etc. was all done over the summer, but going through the NHIAA process took place this fall. The team will compete in Division II – it had to petition down to that level because the enrollment of the three schools would have vaulted everything up to Division I. It makes sense, since the tri-op will be able to assume Merrimack’s schedule and the Warriors had played in Division III throughout their near 10-year existence.

“We did everything in one fell swoop,” Bumpus said.

The situation will be better for HB and Derryfield players, as they were practicing often at 5 a.m.at Conway with home game times often well after 8 p.m. Merrimack plays its home games at West Side Arena usually at 4 p.m. and practices will be right after school. So that means that the HB players will have to hustle to Manchester every day but Bumpus said they’d get some help doing that. The season opener will be Monday, Dec. 16 at 4 p.m. vs. Goffstown at West Side Arena.

Will HB be able to either be alone or resume the co-op again? “I think it’s going to be a while,” Bumpus said, adding that as far as HB being able to compete alone, which it hasn’t done in several years, “I think we’re a ways away. Without a true feeder system in place, it makes it hard to see the numbers grow.”

But Merrimack’s numbers grow now, thanks to HB and Derryfield.

HOOP-A-PALOOZA AT NORTH, SOUTH ON SATURDAY

If you like girls basketball, then you’re going to want to check out a day full of scrimmage games at both Nashua High School North and South, more or less known as the Crumbl Jamboree.

It will be 16 teams, four gyms (Titans Gym, Belanger Gym and the North, South auxiliary gyms) with the first games at 9 a.m.and last ones at 4 p.m.

The teams involved at South: Merrimack, Manchester Memorial, Nashua South, Milford, Winnacunnet, Oyster River, Hollis Brookline and Timberlane.

The teams at North: Souhegan, Nashua North, Alvirne, Trinity, Exeter, Goffstown, Concord and Bow.

Each team will play three games that consist of three 12-minute quarters, running time. Time stops will be for only free throws and timeouts. There will be two minutes in between each quarter, and teams get one 30 second time out each quarter. Bonus free throws on the fifth team foul each quarter (which is the normal rule now, changed last year).

Concessions will be available at both locations, and there will be a $5 admission fee. The game schedules can be seen in graphics accompanying this story.

The event is being sponsord by Crumbl Cookies of Nashua.

COMPETING WRESTLING TOURNEYS

Saturdays are big days for wrestling tournaments during the season, and a switch for one holiday tourney had some teams having to decided where they’d go on Dec. 21.

The prestigious George Bossi Lowell Holiday Tournament used to be held after Chistmas, but now it’s become a pre-holiday tourney that takes place beginning Friday Dec. 20 and continuing that Saturday. That’s the same day that Hollis Brookline’s annual Nor’easter Tourney.

Advantage, HB. “There’s 41 teams in New Hampshire wrestlng,” Bumpus, who also coaches the Cavaliers, said. “Years past 50 percent would go to Lowell.”

But the date change, and the fact that a couple of years ago the event wasn’t at the Tsongas Center but rather in a cramped field house (just for that year), had NH schools reconsidering. As a result, according to Bumpus, only nine Granite State teams are competing in Lowell while his tourney has 16 teams, 15 from New Hampshire and one from Maine.