Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

When I get assigned a game, I start cranking out the notes in a hurry.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while wondering if I might set a power strip on fire if I plugged in both a professional audio mixing board and a heating pad for inside my coat at tomorrow night's Vocational Bowl championship game in Canton:

** The above reference alludes to a short-notice assignment I got early yesterday. North TV, responding to viewers' requests, will televise the high school football Vocational Bowl, Small School Division, between Tri-County and Blue Hills up in Canton tomorrow night beginning at 6. Game-time temperature is predicted to be 31 degrees, and there is no press box or other enclosure into which Del Malloy and I can retreat.

OK, I'll stop whining. It will be cold, yes, but not the coldest game I ever covered as a journalist or broadcaster.

I don't have exact temperature reading for the two games, but there are two in my long history as a journalist that stand out in memory.

The first was pretty recent -- Thanksgiving Day 2018, to be exact. It was my first year as a member of the electronic media, and my assignment was to be one of three announcers going up in a lift over the visiting stands at Attleboro's Tozier-Cassidy Field to announce the Attleboro vs. North Attleboro game. Jared Ware, Del Malloy and I boarded one of those elevated lifts you see at Patriots' training camp for the coaches and their cameras at 9 a.m., and we couldn't budge from there until the game was over, sometime around 12:30 p.m.

The temperature as we ascended into the heavens was 12 degrees Fahrenheit, as I recall. We were all dressed to the hilt, layer after layer of thermal clothing atop each other, in the hope that we would not freeze to death during the game. I'm also not afraid to admit that I was also wearing two pair of Depends above my Jockey shorts because that was going to be a long time on the lift, with no hope of relieving myself in the more accepted fashion if nature came calling.

Fortunately, that never happened. Ever since my mild stroke in 2014, I've taken a lot of steps to become healthier. And my body parts have responded. My kidneys are now Kryptonian in nature. I have gone up to six hours in a broadcast booth without the need to take the pause that refreshes. Those Depends served only to provide better insulation from the cold on that particular day.

We did get the broadcast done. North Attleboro won a good game, marked by an impressive debut performance by freshman quarterback Tyler DeMattio, and the only problem was that Del's headset ceased working early in the second half. Fortunately, my gift of gab kept the commentary flowing.

It probably won't be this cold.

The second game was in the 2003 MIAA playoffs, a semifinal game at Quincy's Veterans Memorial Stadium between Mansfield and Quincy High. That venerable venue has undergone a major makeover recently, but in 2003 it was dilapidated and just plain worn out, its natural surface bulldozed down to bare dirt from goal-line to goal-line. Temperatures at gametime were in the low-20s and falling, and a gusting and constant wind from the north not only dropped the wind chill to intolerable levels, it also kicked up the loose dirt in the center of the field and sent it flying into the faces of players, coaches, and anyone else that had the misfortune to be at field-level.

I, of course, fit into that category. I tried to bundle as best I could -- multiple layers packed into a full-length ski suit I had purchased on a whim a few years earlier (which made me look like a blue version of the Michelin Man), and enough wrappings around my face that only a small slit at glasses-level was exposed to the elements. But even that was enough to keep me miserable the whole night, because the wind-whipped dust was sneaking under my glasses and getting into my eyes, and I was too bundled to do anything to relieve them.

The ski suit was so stuffed and rigid, too, that I could barely walk, let along run as I often had to do when covering a game from the sidelines. And I had to keep one hand exposed to the elements so I could write and keep charting the game -- and I feared at game's end that I had suffered frostbite because of that.

I didn't, fortunately, but some players did. Youthful bravado led a few to shun warming garments for exposed arms and legs, and some suffered skin damage from exposure.

Mansfield did win the game, 45-12, and were to play Swampscott the next weekend, but a snowfall on gameday forced postponement to the following week. Mansfield won that game, too, and the 50-degree weather in which it was played at Brockton's Marciano Stadium felt like a balmy summer day in comparison to that brutal Tuesday night in Quincy.

Del and I will tough it out tomorrow night, I'm sure. But we will both be thankful that our last football game of the year will be announced in one of the climate-controlled radio booths at Gillette Stadium the following night.

** That will, of course, be the MIAA Division 2 Super Bowl between Marshfield and King Philip, a 5:30 start Thursday at Gillette. Del and I will handle the call, but it will be shown on a delayed basis because the Kraft Group has given its own production folks the rights to five of the eight Super Bowls.

It will be shown live on Patriots.com and their YouTube page, and there may be a few more bells and whistles involved in the video work, but if you want to hear announcers that know what they are covering, watch our telecast 48 hours later.

I'm not in the business in making predictions anymore, but I will say this much -- this could be KP's toughest game of the season. Marshfield is fast and multi-dimensional on offense and they run the no-huddle every second they have the ball. Their quarterback is big, strong and releases the ball quickly, the receivers are smart and talented, and they have a very good 1,000-yard running back, too. Defensively they take a few chances and maybe go too much for the big hit instead of wrapping up a ball-carrier, but they certainly knocked an undisciplined Catholic Memorial team off its stride in the semifinal.

Yeah, I like KP in this one.

All that being said, I think this may be the best KP team of all the ones Brian Lee has brought to all their Super Bowls. They are smart, athletic, strong and confident. They play complementary football in all three phases of the game and they learn from their very few mistakes. They saw Marshfield's gimmicks last year and emerged victorious, but both teams have come back better this year. I think if KP just stays the course and executes with the precision and poise that has sustained them to this point, they will finish the job.

One thing other than the non-stop no-huddle concerns me, though. KP has been so dominant this year, they have not had to play a conventionally-timed game since Oct. 27. Every game since then has gone to running time in the fourth quarter. Hopefully that will mean they've been able to store some of that energy that wasn't expended on Diman Voke, Winchester, Barnstable or Franklin and they'll have it in the tank for anything Marshfield throws at them.

** One frustration I've had over the years is getting an accurate roster from teams I haven't seen before. Accurate rosters are extremely important to announcers of all sorts, whether TV, radio or public address, because nobody likes to hear someone else's name attached to an athlete that just made a play.

One of the rosters I got recently -- and I won't reveal the school's name because the athletic director worked very hard to correct it when I spoke to him -- had 10 sets of duplicate numbers on it, and in two instances, four athletes were said to be assigned the same number. That's just madness. 

I try to watch local cable TV broadcasts of future opponents' games, and that sometimes helps me to eliminate my own mistakes. But in this case, even the local announcer had no idea who was playing for his own team. 

If I ruled the world, I would send each coach a template of the perfect roster, either to give to media or to make available to fans. It would have, in this order, player's number, player's name, player's positions on offense and defense, height, weight and graduation year. And the Catholics or regional schools might be convinced, as a nice touch, to add the player's hometown as the last column.

But since I don't rule the world, I'll have to get the Herald's Danny Ventura on board with this. Most folks involved in school sports listen to what he says, and deservedly so. I'll surrender any credit in exchange for better information in my sunset years.

** Basketball is starting soon, and I will be a busy person. My schedule begins Dec. 12 with a doubleheader at Mansfield between the Hornet boys and girls and Attleboro (live on Mansfield Cable Access) and then I go to Foxboro on Dec. 15 to do the Mansfield-Foxboro girls' game for Foxboro Cable Access. My first North TV game won't be until mid-January, but I'll do my share of King Philip games for them, and even four KP boys' and girls' hockey games.

In all, I think I have about 26 basketball games on the schedule before the playoffs begin, and I'll get some help from Kathy Hill to cover some of the Mansfield games I'll have to miss because of North TV assignments.

And yes, I'll probably go to a lot of games just to watch when I don't have an assignment to announce. I just can't get enough hoops.

Can't wait!

More awards for Coach Downs.

** Heartiest congratulations to my pal Lisa Downs, head coach of the Foxboro girls' basketball team, for her recent honors from the Massachusetts Basketball Coaches Association at their annual awards banquet at Holy Cross.

Lisa, who coached the Warriors to a 24-1 record and the state Division 2 championship last year, was welcomed to the 200-win club as well as named one of three Division 2 coaches of the year.

Of course, for my money, there should be only one of those. Lisa has proved her mettle, having coached the Warriors to three state titles during her 12 years at the helm, and having been an assistant on their 1995 Division 3 championship team. And as she enters Season 13, she has her top eight players from last year's team returning to the hardcourt -- although because of a questionable realignment on the part of the MIAA, her team won't be able to defend their Division 2 crown. They've been dropped to Division 3, but I suspect they will succeed no matter where they go.

Lisa is also my favorite guest on my podcast, "The Owner's Box," with six appearances on the tally. At some point, I'm just going to have to name her the co-host, I guess. But I don't know if I can afford the salary demands. And I still owe her a five-timers jacket!

** If you are wondering why you see college basketball players wearing numbers like "8" or "77" or other such varieties of formerly banned numbers this year, it's because the NCAA has loosened its regulations about what numbers are legal on a uniform, and what aren't.

Sometime in the 1960s, I believe, the NCAA adopted rules to prohibit any combination of numbers including 6, 7, 8 and 9, because officials needed to signal players' numbers to the scorer's table using two hands when reporting fouls. If your number was 16, an official would need either an extra digit on his or her left hand, or a third hand. The NBA never adopted a similar rule, although I'm not sure why.

But now, with the advent of TV replays and monitors at the scorer's table in most college venues, it's not difficult to see the number on the offending player's shirt. So everything from "0" to "99" is fair game on a college shirt.

There hasn't been a similar move on the part of the National Federation of High Schools, probably because there's no electronic help to the scorers. The numbers 0, 1 and 2 have come into popular usage, but at least for the time being, 55 remains the highest number any high school boy or girl can wear legally.

** Time to see how many handwarmers I can stuff into my pockets tomorrow. Cheers, and we'll see you on the hardcourt.