Winter sports start up
Toolbox
Anna Grearson - Published: December 1, 2008
Finally, the winter sports season is fully upon us. This week marks the first high school basketball and ice hockey games as well as the beginning of practice for the Vermont Frost Heaves as they begin preparing for their first season in the Premier Basketball League after two straight American Basketball Association.
The Frost Heaves will hold their first practice today. Though the PBL season does not technically start until after the first of the year, there will be a preseason tournament – the Green Mountain Tip Off – at the Barre Auditorium over the last weekend in December.
Chris Cayole and John Bryant will return for their second and third seasons, respectively, with the Heaves. Meanwhile, coach Will Voigt returns for his third season as well. There has yet to be an announcement regarding who exactly the Heaves will host in that two-day tournament.
Things kick off this week with more of the same tomorrow with the Vermont Technical College women and men playing at Johnson State College at 6 and 8 p.m., respectively. The Badger women's team features former Spaulding player Claudia Martineau while the Johnson men feature Lamoille's Bobby Shedd in addition to Peoples Academy's Michael Bosch and Shawn Billado.
The Green Knights will then be on the road on Saturday and Sunday at Southern Maine Community College and Central Maine Community College.
The high school season officially begins on Wednesday with some girls basketball games and both boys and girls ice hockey.
The Montpelier girls basketball team opens on the road at Vergennes while Harwood opens at home against Colchester, both at 7 p.m.
The U-32 boys hockey team, complete with a new coach after longtime coach Jim Segar retired last year, will host an early season tournament on Wednesday and Saturday with Stowe, Harwood and North Country.
On the girls side, the Montpelier girls play at Harwood while the U-32 girls travel to Rutland to take on Mount Saint Joseph's.
On Thursday, the Harwood boys basketball team gets its season going with a contest at Oxbow at 7:30 p.m. while the U-32 girls travel to play Hartford at 7 p.m.
The Montpelier boys basketball team will once again start the long winter season on the road at the Mount Saint Joseph tournament on Friday night while the U-32 boys will play at Windsor.The Northfield girls basketball team will travel to Harwood on Friday while the Spaulding boys ice hockey team hosts its early season Thygesen Tournament Friday and Saturday.
Also on Saturday, the very first Montpelier-U-32 rivalry game will be played out at the Central Vermont Memorial Civic Center at 3:30 p.m. and U-32 is technically the home team.
The Northfield girls will host Harwood that same afternoon at Kreitzberg Arena at 2 p.m.
Wrestling gets into the mix on Saturday morning with the annualNorth/South Duals hosted by Spaulding High School, which get under way at 11 a.m.
There's a busy week to be had at Norwich University with the women's basketball team hosting the University of Maine-Machias on Friday night at 6 p.m., and the women's hockey team hosting Nichols that same night at 7 p.m. The Cadet women will then travel to play UMass-Boston on Saturday
The men's basketball team will play at St. Joseph's (Maine) on Wednesday and host St. Joseph's (Vermont) on Saturday in the first round of the annual Hockenbury Tournament. Rumor has it Colby-Sawyer will be in town for the annual basketball classic, which means former Spaulding players Chrispatrick Cox, Jon Chaloux and Shannon Sciria will be on hand to possibly face the Cadets.
The men's hockey team, fresh off the PrimeLink Great Northern Shootout, will play at Hamilton Friday night and Amherst Saturday afternoon.
The Cadet wrestling team will compete at WPI on Saturday afternoon.
33