It’s back: MIAA approves Division 1A/Super 8 tournaments for baseball, boys’ and girls’ ice hockey

FRANKLIN — It’s official, the Super 8 is back.

The MIAA’s Board of Directors showed significant support for the return of the Division 1A tournaments, as they’re officially named, for baseball and boys’ ice hockey, as well as instituting one for girls’ hockey, approving each by votes of 20-3, Wednesday morning, with very little discussion.

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Both proposals had already cleared votes from their respective sport committees, the Tournament Management Committee, and the finance comittee.

Baseball will add an eight-team Division 1A tournament to its five divisions starting in the 2027 spring season, with all six championship games to be held at Polar Park.

The eight teams will be determined and seeded by power rankings from across all five divisions. The tournament will open with a best-of-three series, with each team guaranteed one home game. The four winners will play in semifinals at the same date and at one of the same venues as the rest of the divisional semifinals.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for the sport of baseball to showcase the sport,” said MIAA liaison Keith Brouillard.

The ice hockey tournaments, which will resume for the 2027-28 season, will be selected in the same manner but will open with three pool-play games for each team. The top four teams, by record, will advance to the semifinals.

With boys’ hockey expected to drop from four divisions to three in the next alignment cycle, and girls’ hockey likely going from two to one, it is expected there will still be six title games played at TD Garden.

The boys’ ice hockey Super 8 initially ran from 1991-2020 before going on a required four-year hiatus for equity reasons, while baseball ran from 2014-19.

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Schools will not be allowed to opt-out of the Division 1A tournaments.

▪ The Board rejected a proposal, 17-6, from the football committee to start preseason practices on Friday, Aug. 21 instead of Monday, Aug. 24, the start date that is part of the new standardized calendar, which was approved by the Board last November.

The football committee noted that with Rosh Hashanah falling on Sept. 11, the first Friday of games, some schools would want, or need, to play Thursday, but that leaves exactly the minimum required 15 days of practice (Sunday practices are banned), meaning any team that’s unable to practice for a day, or any individual athletes who miss a practice, would be ineligible to play Thursday, Sept. 10. Schools that want to avoid playing on Rosh Hashanah (sundown Friday to sundown Saturday) would then have to play their Week 1 game on Sunday.

But the board noted nothing has changed since it approved this calendar in November.

“When we set a standard schedule, all those factors were in place,” said Devin Sheehan, a Holyoke school committee member. “We made that decision, 19-4, to set a standardized schedule. We knew going into there would be growing pains. We, as a board, live by the rules we create. We created this for equity. Schools have already notified students of the schedule … This is something we have to stand by.”

▪ The board unanimously approved the adoption of NFHS rules for football overtimes, 23-0. That will go into effect this fall.

▪ Cross-country will go from three divisions to four after a 22-1 vote by the Board of Directors. Instead of nine qualifier meets (three per division) there will now be eight (two per division) and four state championships each for the boys’ and girls’. Last fall there were 244 boys’ cross-country teams and 215 on the girls’ side.

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