Greenwich Football News and Notes

Greenwich/Westhill, October 27, 2012

The first piece of news is that Greenwich will not play at Brien McMahon in Norwalk this Friday as originally planned.  That game, along with the rest of the games scheduled for this weekend, will be play next Thursday.  According to the CIAC website, the Cardinals will play the Senators on Thursday, November 8, at 6:00.

The Cardinals' following game with Danbury, originally scheduled for Friday, November 9th, will most likely be played on Tuesday, the 13th.  Just going with the what I've seen, I would guess the game time would be 6:00.  That is purely speculation.

Up the road, the Brunswick/Hopkins game has also been canceled.  No word of when they will make that up yet (or if they will).  We were scheduled to carry that game on WGCH.

The FCIAC has made their schedule changes with the intention of protecting the FCIAC Championship game (Sean Patrick Bowley).  If Trinity Catholic and Staples remains unbeaten, then the Crusaders and Wreckers will meet in Trumbull on Saturday, November 17 for the title.  If the Crusaders lose to either Darien or St. Joseph (their next two opponents), and both Greenwich and Staples remain unbeaten, then the Cardinals and Wreckers will tangle at Greenwich High School on Thanksgiving morning for the championship.

Of course, the debate is whether or not the conference should have canceled the championship game totally.  I know, from talking to players, winning the FCIAC means a lot.  Some have told me it means more than winning the state.  Yet it's a lot of football to be played in such a short window.  The alternate plan would have been for Trinity and Staples to be declared "co-champions" if that was the way it played out, or for Greenwich and Staples to play on Thanksgiving.  Then the games from this weekend could have been moved to the weekend of November 16-17.

My take?  I never like the idea of co-champions but, really, football isn't the first priority.  People have lost homes.  They have no power.  We love our sports - we need them as a release - but we have to keep our eye on reality.  But my opinion is irrelevant and the FCIAC has made their decision.  But a lot of coaches, players and fans are outraged.

I once played in a baseball league that scheduled our championship game for a Sunday.  It poured that day, and the game was canceled and never made up.  The trophy said "1985 Co-Champions" on it, part of a threepeat for us.  Still, I hate that co-champs thing.  But, again, priorities.

The bottom line is that I will show up and broadcast the games if I can.  Once can only hope that all power is back by then.

By the way, and this matters little, but three days later, I'm sincerely proud of the efforts that WGCH - and the community - put forward on Monday night.  We had calls from as far away as Cape Cod and the Virgin Islands.  Losing the power at 10:30 was so disappointing, since we had no way to get back on.  The Greenwich Time (Frank MacEachern) wrote about us.

My game story about Greenwich and Westhill is online (and soon, in print) at the Greenwich Post website.  I have to go get a copy of it.  I showed the last issue to Sean (you know, The Son) and he smiled with pride.  I like that.