Tom King

Here are few tids and bits as we keep moving forward closer to high school tournament time and cold weather sports, like, uh, hockey:

So what’s Bruin? It’s officially hockey season and it’s hard to get a gauge on the 2022-23 Boston Bruins because they don’t have, arguably, two of their best players, Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy, and won’t for awhile. The Bruins got the old gang together, bringing Patrice Bergeron back as well as prodigal son David Krejci, have a David Pastnak contract issue, pacified the players – and president Cam Neely – but bringing in a new head coach.

The Bruins say they have a “special feeling” and we say it will be worth 40 wins, a playoff berth, and first round win and second round ouster.

– With that in mind, here are the playoff teams, we think: Boston, NY Rangers, Carolina, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Detroit in the East. Then Colorado, Dallas, St. Louis, Minnesota, Calgary, Vegas, Vancouver, Edmonton in the West. Calgary vs. Carolina in the Cup Finals. It’s a Hurricane in the end. The networks are cringing.

– So far, the Rivier athletic community appears to be enjoying the work of new athletic director Jonathan Taylor, and a good chunk of the reason why is his work ethic.

“I don’t think he’s had a day off since the day he came on campus,” one coach said. “Very hard worker. He’s at all the games. And the weekends … When you see somebody in that position work very hard, you want to make them happy and win for them. He helps you out, wants you to do well, we’re lucky to have him.”

– Once again, the need for the city to get serious about working with Conway Arena for a second sheet of ice is becoming more and more obvious. The Rivier men’s and women’s teams are both being forced due to schedule conflicts to play a few home games away from the Nashua rink – the men’s team is actually playing two games at Warrior Arena in Boston where the Bruins practice. The men likely still will need to use a trailer outside the arena for equipment, changing, etc. from time to time.

It’s time, hockey people. Conway wants to do it. Get on your city pols.

– While the NHIAA Football Committee did a good job in getting creative with its Division I formula for this year, something has to be done about the competitive nature of high school football in this state, as we alluded in this space a few weeks ago. There’s never been a worse difference between the Haves and Have Nots, because some schools simply can’t compete. COVID certainly knocked numbers down for many. Again, powers that be, it’s not the numbers in the school, it’s the numbers in the program. In a lot of ways, administrators are putting kids in a no-win situation. A big F in my opinion, people.

– People, can we all get a grip? Mac Jones is the Patriots fuure at quarterback, and the sooner he gets back on the field, the better. Zappe is a game manager, and that works as long as the team doesn’t get more than one score behind. Now we still need to see a lot more from Jones, but there’s no way Zappe can bring the team back from behind. It’s nice to have him around, but Jones is by far the long term answer.

The one thing, though, is he’s learned the rules at Gillette. When asked on Wednesday if Jones was a little more active in practice than he had been, the answer came, “That’s a question for Coach Belichick.”

That alone may earn him one more start.

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