Tom KIng

It’s tourney time.

For the final time this school year, this pandemic – and different – but well orchestrated school sports year enters playoff season.

So, what do you think of the regional groupings that the tournaments have been broken down into this year?

Yay or nay? Keep ’em or kick ’em?

The Hat will likely be retired after this spring tournament; some of the lowest seeds in the regions are some of the best teams in the state in their respective sports.

But you wonder if the regional formats will stay. They’re basically created to limit travel, and what budget-minded athletic director doesn’t want to do that?

However, do you get a true feel for the strength of a particular sport? Teams that might make a tournament under the old format but not be a high seed can easily reach the semis in the regional format.

But the format also is based on the open concept. The NHIAA should not continue the open tournament; the regular season needs to mean something again. This year, it meant a return to some sense of normalcy, and good mental and physical health for the student-athletes who lost half their 2020 year.

“We have three wins, we get a home playoff game, I’ll take it,” said Nashua South baseball coach James Gaj, whose team hosts Keene at Holman Stadium in the first round of the Division I tourney on Monday.

And had a slight chuckle. That’s because Gaj knows in a normal year, the young Panthers likely wouldn’t qualify for the tournament.

“Across Division II, it would be interesting how things shake out in this new format,” Souhegan coach Tom Walker said. “Can’t say I’m a big fan, and hope if they use a pod-type tourney format going forward that a true seeding format is developed.”

We say go back to the old format, 70 percent rule, etc. But this year, with teams not playing the same amount of games with pandemic shutdowns, etc., the NHIAA and athletic directors handled things beautifully. Great ingenuity and thought was put into everything.

So, now we enter the final tournament season. It’s great having all the local teams play each other in tournament play; in the usual format, sometimes we get them, sometimes we don’t.

And we don’t think any particular sport or division can say that its champions weren’t deserving. And you also can’t say that the players didn’t approach their games with the idea they didn’t have to win. Just ask the Merrimack and Nashua North baseball teams, who charged the Holman Stadium diamond to celebrate walk-off wins.

But again, let’s not be tempted for open tourneys.

That was a favorite of some NHIAA officials past; thankfully they didn’t completely happen.

This fall, let’s start the seasons with the statewide play; if you glance at the calendars on some schools for next fall, they seem to indicate that.

Meanwhile, it will be a busy Memorial Day with tons of local games – and hopefully Memorial Day of 2022 could be a day of rest. But with the increase in tourney games, you do need this Monday for events.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend, and Happy Tourney Time.

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