It doesn’t seem like school started too long ago, but there’s only two weeks left until Nov. 3, the first day of practice.

It couldn’t come soon enough for me. Why every sport doesn’t adopt a power-league system is beyond me. I understand the reasons against it—you can have longer road trips (with higher fuel costs), your backups don’t get to play as much because every game is close, you can have teams with major differences in enrollment—but this past weekend of blowouts in football was the final straw. My three games were Nyack-Sleepy Hollow, North Rockland-Clarkstown South and Albertus-Blind Brook. The scores were 40-0, 40-14 (40-0 after the third quarter) and 51-8. And these were the games we covered—two decided playoff berths.

So I would like to take a moment and thank the powers that be for instituting power-based hockey leagues. Sure, one or two teams might be misplaced depending on who shows up at the start of the season, but the majority of the games are extremely competitive, which is more than I can say for football.

Anyway, here’s some more hockey news. The Byram Hills position was filled by Steve Annunziato, who was an assistant at Rye Town/Harrison the past three seasons. He previously played CHSHL hockey (I believe at Xaverian, but I’m working on confirming that).

And the Mamaroneck schedule is out. The Tigers will go upstate to the Saratoga tournament Dec. 12-13 (vs. Orchard Park and Liverpool), the Auburn tournament Jan. 2-3 (vs. Shaker-Colonie and TBA), and the Massena tournament Feb. 13-14 (vs. Saratoga and Massena). They will also host Stepinac, Yorktown and Monroe-Woodbury in the Tiger Tournament Dec. 26-27. The other non-league games are against Cortland at SUNY Cortland Jan. 17, and at Whitesboro Jan. 18.

That Mamaroneck-Massena potential matchup on Feb. 14 could be a preview of the state quarterfinals on March 10, since the DI winner against plays Section 10 (but this time it’s on the road).

The coaching carousel isn’t done moving yet. After one year at Byram Hills, Bob Fritche will coach Yorktown this season. I just got off the phone with him, and he was excited to go to a League 2 team that returns 16 juniors and senior goalie Will Parra.

Fritche coached in the Ossining program for eight years befoe going to Bryam Hills, which finished 4-19 last year. He played hockey at Ossining — in 1978, his senior year, the team went 14-3-1 and tied Rye for the WRPDIIHL league title — and then played DIII at Norwich.

The Byram Hills position is still open, but should be filled in the next two weeks. One name I heard mentioned was former White Plains coach Jeff Dempsey.

Now, I would hate to disappoint the majority of my audience and write a full post that doesn’t involve League 1, so this is for the people:

Suffern’s non-league opponents are the same as last year (Monroe-Woodbury, Iona Prep and North Rockland) with one exception — instead of White Plains, which is now a part of the league schedule, the Mounties picked up a game with Dom Bosco. Suffern will also play in the West Genesee, Oswego and Liverpool tournaments.

Pelham also has some tournaments lined up. It will host Queensbury, a potential state quarterfinal opponent, and will travel to the Niskayuna tournament and up to Saranac Lake and Malone in December (they won’t face Salmon River this year). Both Pelham and Mamaroneck will be going to defending state champion Massena, where they will also play Saratoga. Finally, the Pelham booster club tournament will feature Mahopac, Scarsdale and Fox Lane.

The Pelicans lost just three players from last year’s team (two graduated seniors and Mac Clay, who went back to Kent) and gained goalie transfer Gavin Lambdin from Canterbury along with some quality modified players,

I’ll have more on Mamaroneck and Rye later. Are there any other teams traveling upstate this year?

Finally, clearing up some confusion from the comments section: junior Alex Klein and his freshman brother transfered from RCDS to Scarsdale. No one else.