Krause: A few tweaks would make for six super showdowns on Turkey Day

Today, let’s talk about football ? or, to be more specific, Thanksgiving football.The idea has been stewing around in my head for quite some time that the 12-team expanded Northeastern Conference contains all the area teams that made up six of the oldest Thanksgiving rivalries we had around here ? and yet, in two cases, these teams are not paired up.Why?I know why, but it makes no sense, anyway. And with just a little work and creativity, we can solve this problem rather easily.First, at the time the Saugus-Peabody rivalry broke up, the Sachems hadn’t won on Thanksgiving since 1988. So, of course, in the last year of the rivalry, Saugus shut out the Tanners. Go figure.The breakup of the Saugus-Peabody marriage resulted in the Sachems pairing up with Chelsea and Peabody signing on with Malden Catholic. There have been whispers that none of the four schools are very happy with these arrangements (Chelsea’s been drilled two straight seasons by Saugus; and while the Peabody-MC games have been more competitive, both have gone to the Lancers). But that’s irrelevant to the argument here.It’s time to make the Northeastern Conference a closed loop on Thanksgiving ? and all it would take would be just a slight tweak or two.First, this idea came about because the Greater Boston League has made overtures to Revere about rejoining, and this might be because former AD Bobby Lospennato was never thrilled that the NEC put the Patriots in the upper bracket in football (even though at 700-plus males, that’s exactly where the school belongs if you’re going strictly by student population).However, as current AD Keith Correa notes, “we have a lot of kids, but that doesn’t always translate to athletes. That’s why power of schedule is better.”Correa says there are pros and cons to rejoining the GBL, and nobody’s made any serious proposals yet. But for the sake of keeping the league as it is currently constructed intact, let’s – for the sake of argument – talk about changing a few things around.Even if you don’t change the NEC criteria for positioning in the large or small, this shouldn’t be a problem. The trick is to find six competitive games. This doesn’t necessarily mean every year, but on balance.The league alignments don’t mean that much anyway. Just this past season Swampscott defeated large-school opponents Gloucester (up there, no less), English, Salem and Revere. Winthrop defeated Revere (as it has done every year since 1989, save for one loss in 2001 that Revere eventually had to forfeit).So it doesn’t matter which division the teams are in. What matters is how competitive the games are. This is Thanksgiving, and nobody wants a turkey year-in and year-out, unless they’re eating it.Let’s also agree that football athletics have become so specialized that what may be a great rivalry in one sport might not be so great in another. To wit: Danvers and Gloucester both have great hockey traditions and, as a result, a great rivalry. But it does not translate to football. Conversely, Salem and Beverly had one of the state’s great football rivalries ? not so in hockey.So with all that in mind, our first order of business is to give Gloucester and Danvers competitive games on Thanksgiving.This rivalry has become a bit one-sided (since 1995 the score stands Gloucester 11, Danvers 2; and the disparity between the two teams is widening incrementally).So my question is this: How possible is it to pair Danvers and Saugus on Thanksgiving? They’re similar schools in terms of the struggles they’ve had with their football programs, and, on average, it could be a competitive game. As an extra-added bonus, there may be a year or two in there where the game actually adds some drama to Turkey Day, since both are in the NEC/Small.This would leave Gloucester and Peabody to pair off. And, really, doesn’t this make sense? If there’s a school besides Peabody that has consistently kept the bar high on the North Shore in the last 25 years, it’s Gloucester, and that alone