The Winslow and Gardiner High School hockey teams met for the Eastern Maine Class B championship at the University of Maine’s Alfond Arena Tuesday night, a night after they won their semifinal games at Winslow’s Sukee Arena.

Winslow beat Houlton-Hodgdon 4-2 in their semifinal and Gardiner nipped John Bapst of Bangor 4-3.

If Houlton-Hodgdon had won, it would have either driven back to Houlton and returned to Orono the next night or the school district would have had to shell out money to allow them to stay at a hotel.

If the players stayed in a hotel, they would have missed a day of school.

If they had decided to drive home after the game and head back to Orono on Tuesday, how much energy would the Black Hawks have had and wouldn’t they be vulnerable, injury-wise?

It’s going to be the same for York and Greely of Cumberland Center, who will have to play tonight at the Colisee in Lewiston after winning Monday semifinals at the Colisee.

They dropped the puck for Monday night’s Lewiston-Lawrence Class A semifinal game in Lewiston at 10:30 p.m. because there were four Class A semifinals, two in the East and two in the West, scheduled that day.

The regional finals in Class A will be played tonight at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland so Lewiston and the other Class A teams do get the benefit of one day off between games.

Yes, I know this was all caused by a snowstorm that forced all the games to be moved, including the state basketball championship games in A, C and D.

The Class B title games were last Friday night and weren’t impacted by the weather.

But, as I have harped on in the past, this postponement hardship could have been avoided if the Maine Principals’ Association allowed the use of Sunday as a makeup day.

I realize hockey teams, like basketball teams, occasionally play back-to-back nights during the regular season but post-season games are much more intense and demanding on the student-athletes.

Everything is magnified and any mistake could cost you the game.

And hockey is a physical sport.

The players are facing a higher risk of injury because they are forced to play playoff games on back-to-back nights.

It’s time for the MPA to again revisit the Sunday moratorium to handle situations like this.

When it reaches the point where student-athletes are at a higher risk of injury, doesn’t something have to be done?

I realize rink availability played into this scenario but having Sunday as an option could have alleviated the situation.

At least allow the schools the option of using Sundays as a makeup date. If one school is against it, reschedule it for another day.

Another thing the MPA may want to consider is waiting to see who reaches the state finals before assigning the facility to a specific class for both basketball and hockey.

Maybe this isn’t realistic due to the availability of facilities.

But it would be nice to think you could to make it more travel friendly.

Why should one team have to travel five hours to the venue while the other only has to travel half an hour?

Central Aroostook of Mars Hill and Richmond’s boys and the girls from Woodland and Buckfield should have played their Class D finals in Bangor, not Augusta.

The Waterville-Lake Region girls and Maranacook of Readfield-Cape Elizabeth boys should have played their Class B finals in Augusta, not Bangor.

lmahoney@bangordailynews.net

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