I just got off the phone with New Canaan football coach Lou Marinelli and in his words “it is 99 percent certain” the FCIAC title game against Darien Thanksgiving morning will be played at Dunning Field.
There was some talk of moving the game to Boyle Stadium because of the huge crowd expected. Right now New Canaan is estimating it can accommodate a crowd of 4,000 and 3,500 tickets were sold the first two days they went on sale. Boyle could handle about twice as many fans.
Marinelli met with his players today and they agreed: they do not want to give up the home-field advantage, especially after playing on the road for six straight weeks before last weekend’s game against Wilton.
“I feel we owe it to our kids and the community to keep it in New Canaan and be selfish about it,” Marinelli said.
Marinelli said he was told last week by Jay Egan, the school’s athletic director, and administrators that the decision was his to make. Unless something has changed, Marinelli plans on walking into Egan’s office tomorrow morning and telling him to prepare for the biggest crowd in the history of Dunning Field.
“I talked to the kids and they agreed that whether we have 8,000 people or 4,000 people, we all thought it was important to keep the game at home for several reasons, including out of respect for a lot of the people in New Canaan who wouldn’t come to the game if it was in Stamford,” Marinelli said.
Expect New Canaan to take some criticism this week for not moving the game to get the largest crowd possible.
But you really can’t get on the Rams for wanting to maintain their home-field advantage. When Staples and Greenwich played for the FCIAC title last year under similar circumstances the game wasn’t moved. The same thing happened seven years ago when Greenwich and Danbury met on Thanksgiving for the championship.
Most schools under the circumstances would want to maintain their edge. You can’t blame New Canaan for doing so, though a lot of fans unable to get tickets no doubt will.
If anything should change tomorrow, the deadline for making a move, we will have the information for you.
