Telegraph Sports Reporter Tom KIng.

Bishop Guertin athletic director Ryan Brown had the perfect title for the local high school winter sports season of 2021.

“It’s the Stop and Start Season,” he said the other day.

Exactly. The pandemic rages on, and the games go on, or they don’t. It’s so much different than last March when the NHIAA shut down the winter tournaments in midstream and then a month later pulled the plug on the spring season.

There was a fall season, but of course it didn’t go uninterrupted. The state champion Nashua North football team, for example, played more playoff games (four) than regular season games (three). Some games were scheduled on the fly. Some teams had to quarantine for two weeks. Pinkerton Academy, for example, shut down its entire athletic program in mid October for the rest of the fall season.

Coaches went the extra mile. For example, Nashua North girls soccer coach Jacqueline Thompson not only coached her varsity team, she’d hop in the car at Stellos Stadium and zip up to the North field complex to coach the Titans JV team – there was a sudden vacancy – so they could keep playing. Why? Because she felt she owed it to her players. Because every day players could play was a good day. “She just did an amazing job,” one former local head coach said.

Who will be the Thompson of January through March? Games were slated to begin this weekend, with a few adjustments. Nashua North and South are already on pause, as virus concerns during the practice time last month ultimately forced athletic director Lisa Gingras to try to restore some health order and halt the practices and games. Teams return on Tuesday, if all works out, and can begin competition by Jan. 25. There’s the stop, now you wait for the start.

Souhegan went on pause right after skills and drills and never even began its preseason until this past week. So consider this: New Nashua North-Souhegan boys hockey coach Bill Koficas started the preseason practices last month with Nashua North kids only. And now, for the next week, he’ll have just the Souhegan kids for practice, and there are only a couple of practices a week. Someone told him during a practice the North skaters would be on pause and he just responded, “Are you kidding me?”

Circle Monday, Feb. 1 on the calendar because that will be the Saber-Titans first game, vs. Merrimack. Oh, and it will be the Tomahawks first game, too, as they were put on pause this past week due to virus concerns as well. Stop. Then start.

Athletic directors are moving games and dates around on the fly. For example, with South out, Bishop Guertin scheduled Goffstown for boys and girls hoop this past Friday because the Grizzlies had an opening.

Hollis Brookline-Derryfield hockey, which was supposed to play North-Souhegan and then replaced the Sabertans with Merrimack, was still looking for an opponent for this weekend. They found one for next weekend, Alvirne-Milford.

Some swim teams, like Bishop Guertin, are basically having intrasquad srimmage meets to be able to post qualifying times for the scheduled state meet next month.

Indoor track is reduced to practices to get the athletes prepared for the spring. And yes, there really should be a spring.

It’s not the same as the fall, when things were outside. There was more a feeling of safety. It will be different inside, and the athletes will all be masked.

It’s going to be a winter unlike any other. Check the high school schedules daily, because as one athletic director said, “We just go day to day.”

Yes, which we heard a lot in the fall. But the feeling is, there will be more of those changes. And remember, if a team takes a 14 day pause, it’s really almost like three weeks, because when they come back they need to have practices to get back in shape, etc.

In fact, if it happens later into mid-February, Gingras said a team will have to have the proper time to be able to compete in the open state tournaments or it might just have to shut down for good.

So here we go. Stop. Start. And hopefully, press play.

Tom King may be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter at @Telegraph _TomK.

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