Overtime with Kyle Brennan: It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

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Round of Applause

Thanksgiving football games actually meaning something is a great thing. It’s been a while since both the Naugatuck-Ansonia and Woodland-Seymour games had serious implications for both the area squads and the stakes couldn’t get much higher than they are this year. Not only is the Naugy-Ansonia game for the Naugatuck Valley League championship, the Greyhounds can clinch a Class L playoff spot (and very likely a home quarterfinal game) by beating the Chargers for the first time since 2001. In Beacon Falls, the Hawks can clinch a playoff berth in Class S by beating the Wildcats. Woodland has never beaten Seymour in back-to-back seasons, but the Black and Gold should have no problem with the winless ‘Cats this year.

Pie is great. What else really needs to be said? It’s one of the several reasons Thanksgiving is one of the greatest times of year (competing with March Madness, Halloween, and Christmas Eve). You’ve got your pumpkin pie, blueberry pie, apple pie, chocolate crème pie, lemon meringue pie, strawberry rhubarb pie, pecan pie, and the pie relative, cheesecake. Goodness gracious, I can’t wait.

Kyle Brennan (yes, that’s me) worked long and hard on the special Thanksgiving football pullout section this year to make it as good as ever. I know how much many of you enjoy the Thanksgiving section every year and had to try my best to equal our award-winning edition we published last fall. So I stayed in the office until the wee morning hours making it as good as I could. As always, we couldn’t have done it without the help of my colleagues, Ken Morse and Ernie Bertothy. Hopefully, the work was worth it and you enjoy it as much as I do.

Chorus of Boos

Thanksgiving football games should have the crowds they used to have, particularly the Naugatuck-Ansonia game. This is the most important game Naugatuck has played in almost a decade and the first time the Hounds have a legitimate chance to beat the Chargers since the 14-13 Naugy win in 2001. Sadly, though, I have a feeling the crowd that travels down to Jarvis Stadium Thursday morning is going to be subpar, to put it nicely. Quite frankly, it will be an insult to the history of the rivalry if there are not at least 5,000 people in Ansonia for this game, and even that is a weak number in terms of what should be historically expected for this type of game. Unfortunately for me, I was way too young to remember the crowds of 10,000-plus that flocked to see this game, but it would be the coolest thing to see something like that again. I wrote a piece about this in the Thanksgiving pullout section, so I encourage you to take a look at that and see what coaches and athletic directors have to say about the shrinking crowd sizes. This is going to be an incredible football game on Thursday morning. Unless you have some legitimate reason not to go, I really encourage you to do so. Introduce your children to the greatness of this rivalry or go meet some old friends at the field and watch the league’s two best teams battle for a championship.