Why High School Basketball Holiday and Christmas Tournaments Are Hard To Find

It used to be before the MPA slapped a rule several years ago that only allowed Maine high school basketball teams 5 playable exhibiton dates for the entire basketball season, there used to be a multitude of Holiday/Christmas Tournaments during the Christmas Break.

CMCC is hosting one and the one Hosted in Portland I think is still on. Other than that I don’t know of any other ones that are being held.

When I was coaching and did not have to face the MPA 5 exhibition playable restrictive dates rule, I would play the regular 18 game MPA Schedule. Play 5 or 6 exhibtion pre-season games and hosted a Pre-Season Tournament at the Bangor Auditorium.

We also hosted a Christmas Tournament at the Bangor Auditorium. My teams also went and played in the Portland Tournament held at the Portland Expo the last 2 years I coached.

When we went to Portland I took 14 players and arranged a game each day with an area high school for my 8 thru 14 players and used my 1 thru 7 players for the games in the Portland Tournament.

The MPA put this restrictive rule in because some schools complained that they did not have the same advantages that other schools had because of their location. So in their wisdom of their fairness doctrine the MPA penalized all because of the locations of a few and thus this rule which really is absurb.

And we wonder wehy the level of basketball is down in Maine.

Thank goodness for Fall and Spring basketball sponsored by AAU, MAC, YBOA, Maine Hoops and MBR for running programs that give basketball players a real opportunity to improve their skills compared to the limited high school schedule situation.

Oh, yeah, the MPA put in another real restrictive rule for this this year when they instituted a rule that does not even allow high school coaches to go and watch their players play during games in the off season.