Sports

Curren coaches on both sides of river

By Tom Haley
Staff Writer
When you live in Springfield, Bellows Falls, Windsor or any other Vermont community in the Connecticut River Valley, you have ties to New Hampshire. You might shop there or you might go there for any number of activities.

Those living in that slice of Vermont are also aware of what goes on in the Granite State.

“People here are frustrated because they see what is going on just across the river,” Springfield Recreation Director Andy Bladyka said this week.

He was referencing the fact that high school basketball players in New Hampshire are practicing and going through drills to sharpen their skills.

Meanwhile, players in Vermont high schools are shut down. Their high school gyms are dark until further notice.

Bladyka is not advocating for practices in Vermont to begin. He is about safety first when it comes to COVID guidelines.

“I would rather be cautious,” he said.

He was simply pointing out that Vermont athletes and fans see something so different so close to home. They can’t help but be envious of the fact that balls are bouncing in other people’s gyms.

Ray Curren is the Judy Collins of coaches. He sees the situation “From Both Sides Now.” Curren coached on the Vermont side in the fall and now he is the varsity boys basketball coach at Stevens High in Claremont, New Hampshire.

Curren has been the Springfield High girls soccer coach the past two years. His inaugural year with the Cosmos was magical. A program that had pretty much experienced futility in the several seasons before Curren arrived, caught fire. The Cosmos went 10-3-1 that 2019 season and then won a playoff game before bowing out against No. 3 Fair Haven in an extremely competitive contest under the lights in Fair Haven.

This year the Cosmos, like every other soccer team in Vermont, had to wear masks.

Across the river, the Stevens Cardinals did not have to be masked for their soccer games.

This winter sports season, though, the Stevens athletes and other other New Hampshire high school players, have come under the mask mandate.

The masks are new to his basketball players, but Curren has been there because of his Vermont coaching experience. He watches his Cardinals struggle to get accustomed to the facial coverings the same he watched his Cosmos get acclimated to masks this fall.

Curren’s Cardinals are practicing now but they are not scheduled to play their first game until Jan. 19.

Vermont is still on course to play games Jan. 11, but stay tuned. That could change.

Curren notices another difference between Vermont and New Hampshire. He sees Vermont being more uniform in its COVID protocol.

New Hampshire schools seem to be varying much more in the way they are approaching things. Stevens’ rival Fall Mountain Regional is not practicing while the school’s academics are all being executed remotely.

Some other New Hampshire schools with remote learning are still holding basketball practices, Curren said.

Curren noted that some of the athletes who would have ordinarily played basketball for Stevens have opted out due to the shortened season. The Cardinals have 12 games scheduled, a regionally designed lineup of opponents.

The Cardinals’ first two games are against Sunapee, a much smaller school (Division IV) that Stevens would not play in a normal season. They will also play larger schools like Hanover and Lebanon, opponents that they would not ordinarily meet.

You can expect Vermont basketball schedules to be constructed similarly along regional lines. The normal diet of northern Vermont opponents Rutland customarily plays, for example, will not be part of the slate this year.

The Connecticut River’s flow will be jammed by ice, the course of nature during the winter months.

The flow of interscholastic athletics on each side of that river will also be slowed. Each side will look a lot different this year and right now drawing comparisons between the states is inevitable.

McElreavy at CC

Larry McElreavy once owned and operated the Miss Bellows Falls Diner. Now, he is part of the delirium surrounding Coastal Carolina University football.

Best known on the college scene as the head coach who ended Columbia University’s 44-game losing streak in 1988, McElreavy is is associated with Coastal’s winning streak.

McElreavy’s title is Senior Analyst at Coastal Carolina Football.

Coastal is 10-0 heading into Saturday’s Sun Belt Conference game at Troy.

tom.haley @rutlandherald.com

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