Seventy-two of the top high school football players from New Hampshire and Vermont began training camp last Thursday at Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, N.H., for the 57th Annual Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl.
The game will be played this Saturday, Aug. 7, at MacLeay-Royce Field in Windsor, Vt.
Three local players are on the Vermont squad - Brattleboro's Devin Rhodes and Davin Freeman and Bellows Falls' Josh Pratt.
The New Hampshire head coach is Ken Sciacca from Kennett High School, while Charlie Burnett of Essex High School leads the Vermont team.
Vermont has not beaten New Hampshire since a wild 47-40 offensive shootout in 2000 at Dartmouth's Memorial Field.
As part of the preparation for the game, the teams took a break on Sunday and visited the Shrine Hospital for Children in Springfield, Mass. The Maple Sugar Bowl is a major fundraiser for the Shriners hospitals in Springfield, Boston and Montreal, and organizers each year bring the players to the hospital to learn the real meaning of Shrine football.
Besides the football, a big part of the Shrine game is the parade that precedes it. Starting at noon on Aug. 7, units from nine Shrine Centers from throughout New England and eastern Canada, and as well an all-star high school band made up of more than 100 musicians from high schools in both states will march in Windsor.
Kickoff for the Shrine Bowl itself is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. For the first time this year, the players will play four, 12-minute quarters - the standard in high school football - rather than the college and professional standard of four, 15-minute quarters that the Shrine Bowl previously used.
Shrine officials say the change was made mainly because the players are used to the shorter quarters and they wanted to reduce the threat of injuries playing a longer game in hot conditions.
Others seem to think the change was made to give the Vermont team more of a chance at beating New Hampshire, since the Vermonters have faded in the fourth quarter of recent Shrine games.
This is the second year that the game is in Windsor. General admission tickets for the game are on sale at more than 80 outlets throughout New Hampshire and Vermont for $8 - visit www.maplesugarbowl.com for the complete list.
On game day, tickets will be priced at $10. Reserve seats at $20 are available through the Shrine Football Office by calling 603-448-1042.
And, if you need a little more incentive to go to Windsor on Saturday, the Red Sox' World Series trophies from 2004 and 2007 will be on display.
The trophies will arrive at Boston Dreams, a sports gallery and coffee house located at the corner of Main and State streets, at 9:30 a.m., and will be available for public view from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the American Legion Hall.
Post 5 falls short in Legion semifinals
Considering how well Brattleboro Post 5 played to get into the state American Legion Baseball tournament, and how well Post 5 played in the tournament, you would expect the players to feel disappointed about finishing one win shy of a championship.
But there's no shame in losing to the top-seeded team that ended up winning the tournament, Essex Post 91.
Brattleboro lost 9-0 to Essex in last Tuesday's semifinal, and you could say that Post 5 was beaten by a team that had more to prove.
Last year, Essex was the first team to be eliminated from the tournament - an unacceptable result for a team that won five straight state Legion titles between 2000 and 2004 and has been winless ever since.
After losing to Bennington in this year's opening game, Post 91 beat Colchester, Bennington and Brattleboro and won the rematch with Bennington, 12-2, to win the title.
Now 26-2 overall, Essex will represent Vermont in the Northeast Regional Tournament in Middletown, Conn., on Aug. 5-9.
Many of the players on this Essex squad played on the Division I champion team back in June, including Aaron Plunkett, who threw a complete game three-hit shutout for Essex to beat Brattleboro in the semifinal game.
Essex got 13 hits off Brattleboro pitchers Tommy Heydinger and Isaac Earle.
Post 5 catcher Kyle Whitworth and first baseman Earle were named to the All-Tournament Team, along with utility fielder Matt Marchicha of Bellows Falls.
Brattleboro, which was the No. 3 seed in the Southern Division in the tournament, ended the season with a 15-8 record in regular season and tournament play.
Essex beats Brattleboro in Babe Ruth state title game
The younger baseball players in Essex are pretty good, too. They beat the Brattleboro All-Stars, 4-2, last Monday in the championship game of the state 13-year-old Babe Ruth Baseball tournament.
Essex gained a measure of revenge with the victory. Last year, in the 12-year-old state Little League Tournament, Brattleboro beat Essex Town to win the championship. With both teams having a number of veterans of last year's Little League tournament, there was undoubtedly an extra edge to this rematch.
Chris Lasch had two hits to lead Brattleboro. Pitcher George Atkins went the distance, giving up eight hits in taking the loss.
Essex will represent Vermont at the regional tournament at Hawthorne Field in Winooski.
CRVBL nears regular season finale
The Connecticut River Valley Baseball League heads into its final weekend of regular season play with the Chester Pirates in first place. They're 9-2 and riding a four-game winning streak. Chester clobbered the third place Ludlow Gold (3-5) with a 15-2 win at Black River High School.
The Putney Fossils are in second place at 6-6, and are coming off a dramatic 4-3 win over the last-place Brattleboro River Rats (now 2-7) at the Dummerston School field on Sunday.
Brattleboro pitcher Kenny Sloat kept Putney batters off-balance for nearly the entire contest with a variety of off-speed stuff, while Putney's Richard Bissell scattered 10 hits in his complete game victory and found ways to get himself out of several jams.
The CRVBL teams will be playing several make-up games this weekend to complete the regular season, with the playoffs scheduled to begin the weekend of Aug. 14-15.