BIDDEFORD – The players thundered out of their respective locker rooms at the 16th annual Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl Friday night, but the sound of their feet clacking against the pavement paled in comparison to the fireworks Mother Nature had just provided.
Just as fans started to settle in, 45 minutes prior to the scheduled start of this year’s event at Waterhouse Field, the game’s organizers announced to the masses that the field and bleachers would have to be cleared due to impending severe weather.
“The first concern we had was safety,” said general chairman Jason Fuller of Lewiston. “We’ve played in the rain before, but we’ve never had to deal with this, and we’ve never had to postpone the start of the game.”
Surprisingly, there was little resistance, save for a few moans and groans from fans who had secured choice seats on the 50-yard-line.
“There are still aluminum-based bleachers on that side of the field,” said director of security Lane Feldman of Turner. “We had to get everyone out of those with the lightning in the area, but everyone cooperated.”
“We’re lucky we’re in Maine and the people are so understanding,” added Fuller. “If this happens somewhere else, we may have had some problems. It was a logistics nightmare, but the fans have been tremendous.”
What started as a “brief” weather delay at 6:45 ended at 8:15 as the players, clad in blue (West) and red (East) started poking their heads out of the locker rooms. By 8:20, the teams were again participating in team warm-ups on a soggy field, and the fans had already filtered back onto the dripping wooden benches. Some carried umbrellas, others wore parkas or umbrella-hats, but none, it seemed, minded the fact that rain continued to fall sporadically from the sky.
Helping the cause
For all of the action in the skies and on the field Friday night, there was a lot of work going on behind the scenes in the weeks leading up the game.
All of the participants, players and cheerleaders, were required to raise at least $300 for the Shriners Hospitals for Children, which receives 100 percent of the net proceeds from the game. Many went far above and beyond the call of duty, including Stephanie DeFilipp, an Edward Little graduate and member of the East cheerleading squad.
Starting last April, DeFilipp contacted family, friends, acquaintances and businesses and raised $2,000 for the Shriners. “It was a lot of hard work,” DeFilipp said. “I sent out all kinds of letters to all kinds of people that my parents knew and stuff like that.”
DeFilipp said she was inspired by a team gathering that filled all of the participants in on the game’s true meaning.
“When we went to the (Shriners) Temple in March and watched a video about what the kids go through, it really motivated me to do the best I could,” DeFilipp said. “Our requirement really wasn’t that much, so I wanted to get as much as I could.”
The combined total raised by players and cheerleaders totaled over $61,000 this year, a new record. For the record, the Shriners have raised $275,000 since the event began.
Spreading the cheer
DeFilipp was one of 40 cheerleaders invited to the cheering squad. Like the players at Hebron Academy, the cheerleaders spent the past week at training camp at Central Maine Community College, “meeting girls from everywhere,” said DeFilipp, who is heading to the University of Maine in the fall and will be a member of the dance team there. “It was so neat.”
“It was hot, but we made it through it, and we’re glad,” said Mountain Valley representative Samantha Colton, who is also heading to Orono in the fall to study nursing.”
Other local representatives selected to the squad include Melissa Brown (Oxford Hills), Roxanne Healey (Lewiston), Ashley Tanguay (Oak Hill), Dylan Smith (Oxford Hills), Kayla Raymond (Leavitt), Jaci Peterson (Oak Hill), and Callie Hird (Edward Little).
Game’s real message
Players and coaches thought the players and cheerleaders missed out this year not being able to make the traditional trip to the Shriners Hospital in Springfield, Mass.
Organizers decided the trip wasn’t feasible because patient privacy policies limited the number of patients they could visit in recent years. So this year, everyone gathered in the spring to listen to speakers, including a former patient from the hospital, talk about the work the Shriners Hospitals do.
“I don’t know if (the impact on the players) is as profound this week as it has been in the past,” said Fryeburg Academy and West head coach Jim “Fuzzy” Thurston. “Making that trip to Springfield emotionally changed a lot of those guys in the past. It gave them a real good sense of what this is all about.”
“(The spring gathering) gave them that sense, but it’s sort of in the back of their minds now,” he added. “They know what it’s about, but it isn’t the up front, emotional thing that it was. But we tried to remind them, every letter, every phone call, every communication that they got from us, that this is about (the patients). It’s not about us.”
Lobster bits
Lewiston safety George Foisy was sidelined due to a left ankle injury suffered during training camp on Tuesday. “It’s all blue and purple and stuff,” he said. “It sucks not being able to go out there and hit somebody.”… The West held a 13-2 series lead heading into last night’s game, including a 15-14 win last year.
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