Over the short history of the National High School Invitational field hockey tournament, there’s been one state whose public schools have been conspicuously absent.
That state is Massachusetts, which has more than 200 public, parochial, and prep-school teams, and is a significant chunk of participation in the United States.
The reason is that there is a rule on the books banning MIAA members from playing more than one out-of-state opponent on consecutive days.
This rule kept MIAA members from competing in prestigious winter ice hockey tournaments, or Christmas basketball tournaments, or other events with competitors from other states. Yup, if you’re a border town looking to play a tournament in New York, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, or Rhode Island, the mere accident of where the state lines are drawn keep the Massachusetts teams from playing on consecutive days in a tournament setting.
But in a vote last week, the rule was scrapped, allowing each individual school district to determine the needs of their teams during an interstate series of contests.
Now, if there’s one state governing body of sports I’ve been critical of over the years, it’s the Massachusetts Interscholastic Association.
After all, they have made some cockamamie decisions over the years, such as putting helmets on female lacrosse players in the 1990s, putting in place two completely different sets of field hockey rules during the 2020-21 academic year, and recently putting a playoff death penalty on the entire athletic program at Peabody Bishop Fenwick (Mass.) during the 2023-24 academic year, banning every athletics team on campus, regardless of revenue or gender, from the postseason.
But in this “blind squirrel finding a nut” moment, the MIAA has just given the green light for teams to compete outside the state.
It’s about time.