Newington, CT November 6, 2008: The Policy Board of the Central Connecticut Conference, one of the largest and oldest high school athletic conferences in Connecticut, voted to expand from thirty to thirty two teams at a special meeting held at the Newington Board of Education this morning. With the addition of Tolland and Rocky Hill high schools the Central Connecticut Conference becomes the largest high school athletic conference in Connecticut. Six members of the former Northwest Conference joined the Central Connecticut Conference earlier this year and will begin play in the Conference next fall.
“We are thrilled that these two great high schools have come on board,” said Commissioner, John Tarnuzzer.
The President of the Conference, Neil Sullivan, Principal of Simsbury High School also stated how the addition of these schools makes a solid, competitive conference even stronger. “It’s been an exciting year for the CCC, and we are pleased to welcome Rocky Hill and Tolland into the fold,” he said. “In addition, the expansion of our conference has allowed us to create division alignments that make more sense in terms of both travel and competitive balance for the member schools. With 32 schools now a part of the conference, we’re likely to have a few growing pains, but I think we all recognize that these moves have simply made our conference stronger.”
In other action related to the expansion, the CCC Policy Board approved realignment plans for football and for other sports. Football was taken as a separate consideration and has been approved as a ‘concept’ at this point. Once this season is completed, the Conference will use this general alignment to schedule football for the fall of 2009. Primary considerations for football realignment were school size and competitiveness based on recent records including the current season with geography as a secondary factor because games are played on Friday and Saturday. In the realignment of other sports, geography and travel were also used as primary factors due to travel during the school week and consideration of student academic needs. (See below for those new brackets)
The new conference members will begin conference play in the fall of 2009.
The Central Connecticut Conference was established in 1984 and has grown over the years to its present twenty four teams. The new division alignments include the following:



East – Hartford Public, Rockville, EO Smith, Fermi, RHAM, Tolland, Rocky Hill, and Bloomfield
North – Manchester, Glastonbury, East Hartford, South Windsor, Windsor, Weaver, Wethersfield, and East Catholic
South – Bulkeley, Bristol Central, Middletown, Maloney, Bristol Eastern, Platt, Berlin, and Plainville
West – New Britain, Southington, Simsbury, Hall, Newington, Conard, Farmington, and Northwest Catholic