George Ferguson Column: Havre, Hi-Line wasting no time getting the fall sport's season cranked up

I love summer, and I don't ever like to say goodbye to it. For one, summers in these parts are way too short. I guess that's the price you pay for living in one of the northern-most sections of Montana, and the town that was named the worst winter city in the United State in 2018.

So, this column isn't going to be a goodbye to summer. No, I'm not done yet because there's still golf to play, trails to be hiked, and if the weather man is correct, a lot of warm days left.

However, when you look at what's coming to Havre this weekend, you might be inclined to think summer's over.

Now, I look forward to the start of a new school year every year. Sorry, kids. I know you think I'm nuts for saying that, but when school starts, so do the sports. And for weeks now I've been looking forward to the start of the 2018 fall sports season a lot actually.

But it wasn't until I took a closer look at the schedules late last week that I realized just how big of a bang this sports season is starting off with.

If you love local sports like I do, then you don't have to wait for anything because, needless to say, we're not easing into it here on the Hi-Line.

Instead, our sport's season is starting full throttle.

First up is football. In less than 24 hours time, the Havre Blue Ponies and Montana State University-Northern Lights will have already both played inside Blue Pony Stadium. The Ponies make their season debut tonight against Hardin, and Northern and head coach Andrew Rolin make their long-awaited debut Saturday afternoon against Mayville State.

Two home games in one weekend would normally be enough to excited anyone, but that's not even close to how much is going on here.

No, like I said, football is starting full-tilt. Saturday the North Star Knights make their season debut at home in Rudyard, while Saturday night, both Chinook and Rocky Boy also play home games. Now that's a lot of football on the Hi-Line.

And football isn't the only thing going this weekend either.

Volleyball will also get underway and, here in Havre, it gets underway with one of the biggest events of the Havre High season. The Blue Ponies are this year's host of the Eastern A Tip-off Tournament, which will feature every team from the East and every team from the Central. The action starts this afternoon and runs through Saturday evening at the HHS gymnasium.

It's been a long time since the Pony volleyball team opened its season at home, so no doubt, it's going to be an exciting weekend for the HHS spikers and their fans.

But again, Havre isn't the only place to see volleyball on the Hi-Line this weekend. In fact, every local team is in action at one point or another, whether it be regular season matches tonight in places like Big Sandy or Fort Benton, or preseason tournaments all over the place Saturday, the high school spikers are not wasting any time getting started.

The Northern volleyball team also opens its season this weekend, not too far down the road. The Skylights make their season debut at the Big Sky Challenge in Butte.

See what I mean? There's a lot of sports going on this weekend and I couldn't be happier.

No, I'm not giving up on summer. I still have plans and things I want to do. I'm still trying hard to make my lawn look good and summer fresh. I'm still going to try and go out compete on the golf course for the foreseeable future, and next week, rain or shine, smoke or blue skies, I'm hiking a few trails in Glacier National Park. So I'm not letting go of summer yet.

But as much as I'm going to try and hold on to summer as long as I possibly can, the writing is one the wall - it's fall sports season, and with how much is going on in Havre and on the Hi-Line this weekend, I'm getting the message loud and clear. And I'm ready to go to work.

Here we go sports fans, we're all back in full swing. Good luck to all of our area athletes, coaches, officials and everyone else involved in the upcoming sports season.

Have a great year, and we'll see you in the paper!