Sports

Kudos to the VPA for having its annual meeting with the state’s media again this year.The Vermont Principals Association is a member driven organization made up of principals and athletic directors from all the high schools in the state.

After all these years there is still a perception among the public that the VPA is an independent organization that has no clue as to the daily goings on at the high school level around the state..

That of course is not the case. I think the VPA does a fantastic job!

One of the questions asked by the media at the meeting with the VPA concerned the numbers situation at MSJ. The VPA does not meddle in the every day affairs of its member high schools and has never suggested to MSJ that it didn’t have the numbers to field a team in football or any other sport for that matter. It’s up to the individual schools because again the VPA is a member driven organization.

That’s the way it should be when you get right down to it.

Burlington High School grad Torrey Allard has been named as the new varsity football coach at MSJ. He had been an assistant at Otter Valley. I met Coach Allard at the Shrine game, a couple of weeks before he was named the Mountie coach.

Former MSJ standout Nolan Rhodes is playing college football. Nolan is playing on the University of Vermont club team. The UVM club team met Castleton in a pre-season scrimmage at BFA of St. Albans last Saturday.

It’s really my favorite time of the year and it all starts up this week on the Northeast Sports Network, Vermont’s sports leader with high school and college fall sports.

Castleton will open up its 2nd football season on Saturday September 4th as the Spartans will be hosting Plymouth State at Spartan Stadium at 1PM. The game will be videocast on nsnsports.net and will be televised live on public access channel 20.

The same will be true for the Castleton field hockey home opener on Saturday September 4th at 6PM and mens soccer on Sunday September 5th at 1PM as CSC will be hosting Colby-Sawyer and womens soccer to follow as Castleton will be hosting Johnson & Wales at 3PM. The field hockey game and the two soccer games will be videocast live on nsnsports.net and will also be shown live on public access channel 20 in Rutland.

This is my third fall season coming up with NSN. Our main objective is videocasting and audiocasting high school and college sports in Vermont and at times in New Hampshire. We have a great working relationship with most of the colleges in the state and have signed multi year contracts with some of them.

Some high schools are on board with us and some are not. Believe me when I say this, there will be a time in the future when there won’t be that many radio stations in Vermont ,if any, broadcasting high school sporting events. I don’t know when that will happen, maybe 5, maybe 10 years down the line, but I believe it will happen. It’s already happened in the spring and summer sports for the most part. Schools will be begging NSN to videocast or audiocast their games.

Shouldn’t your school be jumping on board?

Also shouldn’t you people who own businesses be jumping on board to be advertisers too?

Here again are a few facts for you: Last year’s Rutland-Essex state championship Division 1football game had 18,000 viewers/listeners on nsnsports.net, the most watched/listened to high school sporting event in Vermont history.. The Proctor-Twinfield boys basketball Division 4 semi had 5,576 viewers/listeners, the CVU-Spaulding Division 1 state championship boys hockey game had 4,444 viewers/listeners..The impressive list goes on and on.

During the 2010 basketball and hockey semi and finals coverage, the Northeast Sports Network had 68,119 viewers/listeners. No radio station in Vermont is anywhere near those figures. It isn’t even close. On top of that, NSN plainly has the best coverage with replays during the games plus archives and DVD’s available. Also the top talent in the state with 27 Vermont Sportscaster of the Year Awards plus two members of the VPA Hall of Fame and a member of the Vemont Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

If I owned a business I know where I’d be advertising. It’s a no brainer!

Catch you next week!

Laduc, Ryan Share Devils Bowl Checkers

With rainouts the last two weeks, the drivers at Devils Bowl where raring to go on Sunday night in a caution filled double features on Heritage Credit Union night. In the first feature Tim Laduc shot out to the early lead and picked up his 1st win of the season. Laduc has had a fast car all season and finally put one together. Mike Bruno, Kenny Tremont, Vince Quenneville and Marc Johnson rounded out the top five.

In the 2nd feature Jimmy Ryan went wire to wire for his 2nd victory of the season. There was a torrid battle going on for 2nd between Leon Gonyo, Vince Quenneville and Mike Bruno. Bruno ended up with a flat and recovered for 6th. Quenneville looked like he was going to beat Ryan but a flat relegated him to the back where he rallied to a third place finish. Leon Gonyo was 2nd with Laduc ending up 4th.

In the sportsman features it was Jack Swinton picking up his 1st win of the season and Don Miller notching win number 8 of the season this time in his gremlin style modified. Jon Miller and David Emigh shared Renegade victories while Jeremy Houghtaling and Chris Wilk picked up the wins in the Pro Street/Super Street challenges. Devils Bowl will hold its championship night next Sunday night with double points for all divisions.

In other area racing Pittsford’s Kyle Davis after a couple weeks of struggles found victory lane at Twin State Speedway Friday night in the strictly stock division. Chris Wilk picked up another victory in the Super Street feature. Lacey Hanson won the points championship in the 500 cc division of the Granite State mini sprints.

Lebanon Valley held its annual Mr. Dirt Track USA on Thursday night and it was JR Heffner picking up the 17,500 dollar win however the engine and rear end blew as he crossed the finish line. Heffner returned to victory lane on Saturday night in the regular Saturday night program on the high banks.

Well, after last week, you just knew that I could not resist the “CALL OF THE SALMON”, so this weekend brought on the best of my aging ability and resources to go and capture some of the “SHARKS”, as we affectionately call them. And what a strange weekend it was, with the power company dropping the levels from 500CFS on Thurs. to 365 on Friday and then 185!!!!! on Sat, Sun, and MON. These are the lowest flows ever run during Salmon season, and frankly, I am surprised that the NY DEC (department of Environmental Conservation) allows them to do this. The fish that are in the river, and there are quite a few, even for this early season, have to struggle mightily to make the rapids run upstream, especially in 85 to 90 degree afternoon temperatures. Indeed, many die trying and it is an abject waste of resource, especially since the Salmon River Reservoir is chucked brim full with water. There is hardly any danger of drought conditions, even if they ran 350 or 500 consistently. But watch out!!!!! When the Kayakers have their weekend, they will surely run 750 CFS for them so they can play their games on the river. I just don’t get it!!!! Money, power, and political correctness---and the fish be damned.

Well, in spite of all that, it was very forgiving on the aging legs of this old fisherman, as we could cross the river at just about any point in the rapids without much danger of capsizing. We did, however, have to change into the “retro-Orvis” gear, consisting of wading boots with cleats and socks and shorts and a tank top or t-shirt just to survive this kind of fishing in 90 degree weather. The real problem is that in this sparse attire, you have few or no pockets in which to put the gear that you absolutely need to fish. That requires you to slim down your needs to the essentials. Have to have flies (lots of them as the shale is unforgiving) and weight sinkers, and a drag rope or two if you are going to keep fish, and a sturdy set of pliers as you don’t want to go messing anywhere near the inside of the mouth of a 28 pound Salmon that has developed “dog teeth” on its spawning run.

There were not a lot of fish running the river this weekend, but enough to keep a couple of seasoned warriors occupied for most of the morning. We get to the river at 5:30---well Ronnie does anyway!!! And Don is usually behind by about 45 minutes. I just can’t bring myself to that early an entry to the river every day. Sometimes, yes---but not every day. The few fish that are pocketed in about 700 to 1000 yards of stream up and down from us begin to move as they are fished by anglers up and down the river. I would say that we were dealing with about 30 to 50, maybe 60 fish in that stretch of water until they move out and upstream past us on their way to the spawning beds of deeper water much farther upstream. And that is plenty enough if you can manage to hook two or three, or maybe five of these brutes because in this early season the fish are fresh in from the lake and are bright silver, with green backs and the meat is as pink as a Sockeye. Even though they tire easily in these shallower and warmer waters, their first bursts are wild and they have much more crazy in their systems than later fish. Two or three hundred yard runs are not uncommon.

We managed to do quite well for early season, with limits of three fish or close to it daily. We keep most of these early fish as they are tastier, very cookable, and awesome on the smoker.

I had one of the most enjoyable experiences this weekend while sitting on the rocks at the point of a divide upriver. I could see a couple of anglers coming down the bank and starting to work their way in my direction. I quickly noticed that it was an older man and a young boy and the father, as he approached, politely asked if I wouldn’t mind if they sat on the rock chair next to me as there were about three places there. Saying sure they could, I started to engage in fishing conversation. The boy, 8, was on his very first excursion on the river and outfitted in a real neat pair of youth chest waders and boots, he just brought a gleam to my eye and it was great to see a dad and son on such a beautiful day on such a great river searching out such awesome fish. It wasn’t long before some fish made their way upriver and we were after them. The boy’s dad, Jeff, hooked one of them and let his son, Ryan, play the fish but it was foul hooked and he had to yank it off. I was nearby and offered at the brute and ended up with a good mouth hook and let Ryan play out the fish where he could really see and feel the proper fight and we soon landed it as a tag-team of anglers. It has been quite a while since I have seen eyes like saucers gleam like that, and it just made my heart sing.

I hope you enjoy this nice shot of Ryan Bishop, age 8, on the Salmon River with his very first King Salmon. And until next week, good Sports.