By Roger Brown
nhfootballreport.com

While many of New Hampshire's high school athletes are now focused on winter sports like basketball and hockey, some are about to begin another football season.

The New England Indoor Football League will start playing regular-season games in January. The NEIFL featured a high school division for its first two seasons, but has added youth leagues this year.

The NEIFL uses an eight-on-eight format, and most of the rules are similar to those used by NHIAA high school football teams.

"We initially geared the league toward high school players," Salem Wolves coach John Morin explained. "Teams that play in warm weather have much longer seasons than we do and we thought this would help players work on their skills. Now it's a mixed bag of high school players and non-high school players."

The high school division has six teams: New Hampshire Gladiators, Haverhill (Mass.) Highlanders, Londonderry Titans, Manchester Mercenaries, the Salem Wolves and John Stark.

The cost to play depends on the number of players on a team's roster. No team can have more than 22 players.

"Basically it's between $170 and $260 per player," Morin said. "That includes equipment, uniform, practice time in an indoor facility, game time, officials and an EMT. There are six regular-season games and every team makes the playoffs. You have a minimum of seven games."

Games are played on Saturday nights at the Rising Stars facility in Bedford.

"It's a fast game and it's really about improving skills," Morin said. "These are kids who don't want to quit playing football."

Morin said there is still time to enter a team in the high school division for this season. Anyone interested in learning more about the NEIFL can contact Morin at 898-3396 or visit the league's web site: www.neifl.com.