Canadian smoke alarms Maine coaches, athletes> Practices and games get called off

Dense smoke from Canadian forest fires that got in many people’s eyes on Tuesday morning also posed a serious enough threat to their lungs so that coaches and athletic directors called off practices and games for many athletes in eastern and northern Maine.

Athletic director Garry Spencer said he had never experienced anything like it during his 13 years at Old Town High School.

Varsity cross country practice was canceled, a girls soccer scrimmage was postponed, and a varsity football practice was changed from “a hard workout to an evening walk-through in the gym,” Spencer explained. A freshman football practice was also canceled.

“We called Eastern Maine [Medical Center] in the morning,” explained Spencer, who discussed such things as the effect the smoke could have on athletes with asthma and other respiratory problems. “We decided we’d rather be safe than sorry.”

Football players at Brewer High School and Bangor still had double sessions, but their morning sessions were reduced to very light workouts.

“It was pretty bad this morning,” said Brewer coach Don Farnham. “But it’s like I told the kids, at least there were no black flies.”

Both teams held regular sessions late Tuesday afternoon. The season picks up steam for the two teams at 7:30 p.m. Friday with an exhibition game at Brewer.

Bangor boys soccer coach Keith Bosley decided to call off his early morning practice, but did hold the second session in the afternoon.

“We were lucky we didn’t have any problems,” said Steve Vanidestine, Bangor’s athletic director. “We keep a close watch on the kids with asthma and respiratory problems, but that’s a practice that’s standard for us anyway.”

A girls varsity soccer scrimmage and cross country practice were canceled at John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor and boys and girls JV soccer games between Presque Isle and Houlton in Houlton were called off.

Principal Jim Marquis said Fort Kent’s home varsity soccer games against the Caribou boys and girls teams were in serious jeopardy early Tuesday morning.

“When we got to school, it was awful. It was nauseating. But the wind shifted later in the morning and it was OK by the afternoon, so we were able to play the games,” said Marquis.

Maine Central Institute Athletic Director Wally Covell said his Pittsfield school’s activities were not postponed but the workouts were “reduced a little bit.”

Football players going through the morning’s drills reported sore throats, burning eyes and aching chests from breathing in the smoke.

The MCI postgrad football team is scheduled to play a junior college in St. George, Quebec, on Sunday. Covell said he will monitor the situation with the forest fires before making a decision on whether or not to send his team.

Most athletes at the University of Maine in Orono and Maine Maritime Academy in Castine went about practice as usual for the fall campaign.

“It was not that bad down here,” said athletic trainer John Sloyd at Maine Maritime. The football and soccer teams practiced as scheduled. Even the Bucksport High School football team worked out on the coastal campus’s artificial turf, Sloyd said.

Bucksport and Hampden Academy will play an exhibition game on that field at 7 p.m. Friday.

Only the women’s soccer team canceled its morning practice at the University of Maine, according to athletic department spokesman Joe Roberts.