Venue change for CIAC final
CHESHIRE — The CIAC announced on Wednesday site changes for Saturday’s football championships.
The Class LL final between No. 8 New Canaan and No. 2 Greenwich, originally scheduled for 2 p.m. at Shelton High School, will be played at Boyle Stadium in Stamford at 10 a.m. The Class M final between Berlin and St. Joseph will remain at Shelton as scheduled, but with a game time of 2 p.m. instead of the originally scheduled 10 a.m. The updated complete championship schedule for Saturday is as follows:
Class LL: New Canaan vs. Greenwich, 10 a.m. (Boyle Stadium, Stamford)
Class L: Maloney vs. Daniel Hand, 2 p.m. (Veteran’s Stadium, New Britain)
Class M: Berlin vs. St. Joseph, 2 p.m. (Shelton High School)
Class S: Haddam-Killingworth vs. Bloomfield, 10 a.m. (Veteran’s Stadium, New Britain)
The schedule changes come as a result of heavy online ticket sales for the Class LL final creating concerns of the ability of Shelton to accommodate multiple high-attendance games at one venue. Maintaining the 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. time frame provides the possibility of viewing games at multiple venues. The CIAC football committee chairperson, CIAC football tournament director, the host athletic directors who offered their sites on short notice and CIAC staff all agreed on the decision to vary from the plan of having two football championship sites given the circumstances.
“CIAC policy remains to not alter championship
predetermined venues or schedules based on the geography or requests of
the participants, but in this instance, the circumstances of having a predetermined site change late in the process and another venue becoming available led to the decision to make this
change,” CAS-CIAC Executive Director Glenn Lungarini said. “As always, the focus is on providing the best and most appropriate championship experience possible for the qualifying teams, and we believe this decision provides that opportunity and we are grateful for those facilities that have offered their sites for our championship contests.”