LAST MONTH at a tennis tournament in Bedford, NHIAA Executive Director Patrick Corbin was asked why his association never considers Manchester as a potential playoff site for outdoor tournaments.

“Until they get rid of the surcharge for the lights, we have no intention of holding any of our tournaments in Manchester,” said Corbin.

Last month the NHIAA held its baseball semifinal games at Holman Stadium in Nashua (Division I), Memorial Field in Concord (Division II), Southern New Hampshire University (Division III) and Plymouth State University for Division IV.

The four championship games were played at the Northeast Delta Dental Stadium, home of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

The boys’ lacrosse tournaments (semifinal and finals) were held at Bedford High (Division I), Exeter (Division II) and Stellos Stadium in Nashua for Division III.

Southern New Hampshire and Plymouth State were the sites for the semifinals and final for girls’ lacrosse.

Gill Stadium, the Clem Lemire Complex at Manchester Memorial’s Chabot-McDonough Field, West Memorial and Livingston Park were dark for all of those NHIAA spring tournaments. That’s also been the case in recent years for the spring and fall NHIAA tournament games which are played under the lights.

“It’s sad because our turf fields at Gill Stadium, Memorial and West Memorial are as good, if not better, than any other turf field in New Hampshire,” said Manchester Public Schools athletic director Dave Gosselin. “But I understand where the NHIAA is coming from, I really do. The usage of lights in Manchester are expensive.”

According to Gosselin, Public Service of New Hampshire, the state’s largest electric utility company, automatically levies a hefty one-time monthly fee when the lights are turned on before 8 p.m.

“The charge is $1,500 at Gill and Memorial and $1,000 at West Memorial and Livingston,” said Gosselin. “We have no choice but to swallow that surcharge during the fall regular season. So from August to November, we’re paying PSNH anywhere between $16,000 and $20,000 just to turn the lights on before eight o’clock. That doesn’t include the hourly rate we’re charged to use the lights.”

Gosselin said the reason West Memorial and Livingston are charged $1,000 is “because those fields have a smaller bank of lights than Gill and Memorial.”

Gosselin added “unless we want to start our varsity sports like football around 4 or 5 p.m. (on Friday) to avoid the fee, we need the lights in the fall. We obviously don’t use the lights during the winter and in the spring, we’ve avoided turning the lights on before eight o’clock. The problem in the spring is, sometimes a baseball game has to be halted for 10 or 15 minutes before eight o’clock because of darkness. We’ve had to stop baseball games for 10 or 15 minutes just to turn the lights on after 8 p.m. to avoid the surcharge.”

A phone call to Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas asking why Nashua, Exeter, Concord, and even Bedford — all communities that are currently hosting outdoor NHIAA tournaments — are not getting hit with similar surcharges for lights yielded a frustrating response.

“That’s a very good question and unfortunately I have no answer,” said Gatsas. “We met two years ago with PSNH and I still don’t have an answer on the surcharge. No sporting tournaments at Gill Stadium because of a light situation makes no sense to me. Gill Stadium has always hosted tournaments in the past and should still be hosting tournaments today.”


JOHN MORTIMER, race organizer and owner of the Millennium Running Company, announced after the HASLAW Manchester Mile that 975 runners registered for the race compared to 532 a year ago.

“Actually we were over 1,000 because some of the entrants registered for both races,” said Mortimer. “We’re thrilled with doubling the number.”

Mortimer said proceeds from the Manchester Mile will benefit the Greater Manchester Youth Outreach Program. “We donated to them last year after the Manchester Mile,” said Mortimer. “Our mission is to keep the youth healthy and their mission is trying to keep youth out of trouble. To me, that’s a good combination.”

Julie Culley, who won the inaugural Manchester Mile last year, qualified for the Olympics last week when she won the U.S. Olympic Trials women’s 5,000-meter run in Eugene, Ore.

“It doesn’t surprise me and actually going back in history of the Millennium Mile and, now the Manchester Mile, we’ve had a numbers of participants who have won our races and gone on to accomplish something special,” said Mortimer. “This year it was Culley. We had Katie McGregor, who won the Millennium Mile and was a U.S. champion in the 10K. We also had Kevin Sullivan, another Millennium Mile winner, who later qualified for the Olympic Team a second time. Then we had Amy Mortimer (no relation to John). Amy won the Millennium Mile and the following year competed for the world championships. So either we’ve been lucky or we just know the right people.

John Habib is a staff sports writer. His email is jhabib@unionleader.com.