Sports

Flag Football League Hopes More Lights Add Schedule Flexibility

A local flag football league that launched last year hopes to add temporary lights at Patton Park to increase the scheduling flexibility for the league.

New England Flag Football, which last year kicked off with more than 300 children on 29 teams, this year hopes to expand the number of games played under the lights.

The league is asking the Hamilton Zoning Board of Appeals for permission to put up temporary lights on Saturday nights this fall at Patton Park. The move is designed to increase the flexibility in scheduling games, said board member Drew Trip, who along with Jeremy Coffey and John Kain founded the league.

The Zoning Board will undertake a site plan review of the lights when it meets on Aug. 7.

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Tripp said the league would rent the lights, which would be on trailers and would be in place through the full season.

The league runs from Sept. 7 to Nov. 23 - the Saturday before Thanksgiving in mid-November. Games are played on Saturday afternoons and evenings at Patton Park.

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Tripp said it’s not clear whether the league will expand this year or not, but the request to put up the temporary lights is not motivated but an anticipated expansion. If the league does grow, Tripp said he hopes to add more girls. There were several female teams last year, he said.

Last year, only two games fit under the existing, permanent lights that were put up at the field by Hamilton-Wenham Little League and the Hamilton-Wenham Recreation Department.

“We had four other fields running before the dark hit,” Tripp said.

The 30-foot tall lights would be used between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m., according to the ZBA application.

Most of the games were played between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. with two games played each at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. last year, Tripp said. With lights, the games could be spread out through the evening.

“It’s really an effort to give us more flexibility for a scheduling perspective,” Tripp said.

During each time slot, there’s a “spotlight game,” Tripp said, where there’s a game announcer and music playing.

“It kind of has the Monday Night Football feel,” Tripp said.


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