Hello All,
I just returned from the Verizon Wireless Arena, here in Manchester NH. The facility is really quite nice and my poll question to nothern New England teams is would you like to see a Regional brought back to Manchester in 2003…cast your vote.
-Justin
I’m all for a return to Manchester … it IS the home of FIRST, and I miss being there. Granted, Connecticut will probably be nicer now that UTC moved things out of the Meadows in Hartford… but I do still miss Manch.
PS. - Justin, did you mean the first choice to be “FIRST belongs in NH” not NE? Last I checked, CT was still a part of New England 
Well, New Hampshire is home to FIRST and I would love to have it here. I wonder if that has anything to do with my living five minutes from Manchester?
I wonder if New Hampshire would be the best location for a new regional. The main problem that I see is that it isn’t particularly centrally located around teams. As far as my recollection goes (and correct me if I’m wrong) but there aren’t particularly many teams either north, west, or east of New Hampshire. There are some teams in New Hampshire but not excessively many. Now there are a significant number of teams to the south but I don’t know if that’d be enough to offset the lack of teams available in other directions. Just a thought. Another thing is, when is hockey season (as the Verizon Wireless is a hockey arena)? Would this conflict with regionals (as a guess it seems yes to me but I don’t follow hockey).
Matt
I still say that Northern CT/all of MA would be a decent place for a regional. When I mean northern CT I mean north of Hartford (::ahem:: Gampel Pavillion, Univ of CT…and yes, even though its basketball season, it is not being used all the time).
But MA would be good too, since it seems to be a central location for New England (as opposed to New Haven, even though I love New Haven, it is quite a schlep)…though Im not familiar with the available spaces in MA.
-Jessica B
Regionals in the Providence Civic center would be nice, it would be midway between NH/MA/VT teams and the CT/NY teams. There is a lots of stuff to do in Providence. Its a pretty safe area, and there are some pretty reasonable rates for hotels and other cost.
Ok… so I guess I have to recomment on this one 
First off, we all know that UTC’s done great things for the New England Regional - took them a bit to get used to things, but overall, I think they have improved year by year they have been the sponsor. I don’t know Connecticut well enough to comment on the location change from Hartford to New Haven… but knowing the area we were in at the Meadows in Hartford, it has to be for the better.
That said, I still miss the old Manchester regional. I miss being in the college gym, and although I know we have outgrown the school, I REALLY miss stadium seating and the Manchester area in general. It’s still odd for me to think of teams staying at the Holiday Inn Center of New Hampshire just for Kickoff, and not for a regional like I did in '98.
I also understand what Matt said about location. My gut feeling wonders though, if something returned back to New Hampshire, would it be easier for the New Hampshire teams to attract and retain their sponsors? It seems the like the rate of team withdrawal in that area increased exponentially since the regional was moved south. And really, we already have a Long Island and a New York City Regional… I think it might be a good idea to have one farther north than CT. Perhaps we could get schools and companies from VT, NH, and ME to come and look and perhaps sponsor new teams, or give those exsisting ones an extra hand?
All that said, if there wasn’t desire to move back to Manchester (which I’m all for), then maybe it’s time to take another look at the Worcester Centrum? Just a thought…
~ lora
Well I have to admit that I missed the year the Championship was held in the gym of the school I teach at. No regionals that year. Nor the next, when I did attend the Championship, which was held in the other high school in Nashua.
But clearly there is a history of FIRST in New Hampshire. Manchester would probably be the best place to hold a regional meet. But the Whitamore Center at UNH would have enough room too.
There are 15 teams in the state plus some in Maine and Vermont. Possibly a feww teams from Canada could come. Mass would be easy as well. I think that there are probably more than enough teams for whom NH would be easier than New Haven.
If we can’t have a regionals in NH the least they could do is hold one in Mass. Perhaps Boston?
We could always use more regionals closeby, especially with this new even odd thing, i think more teams will be going to more regionals
and what better place is there than manchester, its the home of first