Tom King

Here are some tids and bits as we try to take a breather before the high school tournament season begins in earnest, as field hockey starts this week and soccer and volleyball begin later this month:

• Who’s No. 1? And what does that really mean? This past week the Bishop Guertin High School girls soccer team was ranked in a three-way tie for No. 1 in the country, and the Nashua South boys soccer team No. 7, by the United Soccer Coaches, the largest soccer coaches organization in the world. Been around since 1941, very creditable.

But how do you rank high school teams nationally? Especially in soccer, where the margin of error and difference between teams is razor thin. Thousands of schools and teams.

You want to talk regionally? Have at it, that’s very legitimate, and both South and BG were ranked No. 1 in New England (Region 1) in boys and girls, respectively.

But not to throw cold water on any of these accolades, but national rankings on the high school level are , at best, a stretch.

What about the Nashua girls basketball team in 1987? That’s a little different, because girls basketball was just becoming popular. We don’t want to say it was in its infancy, but it wasn’t. Different time.

• As he said when we spoke to him after last season, Nashua’s Tim Neverett, a broadcaster with the Los Angeles Dodgers, wrote a book about the team’s championship season of 2020 entitled “Covid Curveball”.

This week Neverett was awaiting the outcome of the Giants-Dodgers NLDS to determine when he’d be back in Nashua for a book signing. Should be an interesting and enjoyable read, and we gave you some glimpses last year of what life was like during that very, very different season.

• Also late this week, as of this writing, the NHIAA was still determining how to deal with the football standings in all four divisions impacted by COVID game cancellations. It was set to go to the Executive Council after word was the NHIAA Football Committee hadn’t cleared things up in a meeting more than a week ago. Reportedly, one decision that’s been made is that the cancelled games will not be forfeits, but rather no contests. Good decision there.

Now, as long as we’re still dealing with pandemic impacts, dump any point rating systems and just go with good old fashioned winning percentages.

• Are you ready for … some hockey? It’s always so strange to see the NHL and the Boston Bruins open up in October when there is so much going on; it would be better for the NHL to open up in November. Of course, last year was completely

different, starting in January. But why the heck did the Bruins have to wait until Saturday night to drop the puck for the regular season when most of the league had games all week?

• Wow, what a tough season for local high school golf teams, a year after we had a Division II champion in Hollis Brookline.

Things were still good on an individual basis as Alvirne’s Noah LeClair was expected to be in the mix this weekend for the Division II individual crown, and Nashua North’s Eva Gonzales took third in the NHIAA Girls Individual Tourney earlier this month. She, like LeClair, had a fantastic fall.

But here we were all season looking forward to having the Division I team tournament locally for the first time in a while, this past Thursday at Overlook. Only problem was just one full local team that made the tourney, Bishop Guertin, and it was a 10th seed. And not a single full local team in Division II, but that event was held in another universe – Rochester. Oh well.

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

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