End of the Shrine Game is long overdue

This has to be the end of the Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl as we know it, right?

This year was supposed to be the year Vermont snapped the streak, and look what happened.

The slope was incredibly slanted in the Green Mountain State's favor. The game was not only back in Vermont, it was practically in New York. Anyone attending the game from Nashua or the seacoast had a six-hour round trip to watch the game, which New Hampshire had won by double-digits for almost all of the last 14 years.

Well, now make it 15. Despite playing closer to Albany than to Concord, despite playing with a roster that didn't include some of the best players in the state (it's supposed to be an all-star game, right?), New Hampshire still won, thanks to a 20-point, fourth-quarter comeback.

So what's next?

Does Vermont get five downs next year? Is New Hampshire forced to play with just 10 players at all times? Can the Granite State no longer throw a forward pass? Will NH touchdowns only count as four points?

That's the point this game has reached. Something beyond drastic - something absurd - has to be done to make it competitive.

Drastic hasn't worked. It didn't work when the game started limiting the New Hampshire coaches to picking the same numbers of kids from Pinkerton, Manchester Central and Nashua South as Winnisquam, Franklin and Mascoma. It didn't work when camps were moved to Castleton, Vt., and it didn't work with the game there as well.

It didn't work this year, when game officials declared any New Hampshire player who participated in the CHaD East-West All-Star Game ineligible for the Shrine Game.

An all-star game between New Hampshire and Vermont is beyond fixing, but that doesn't mean the Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl has to end. It has to change into something else.

The longest running Shrine Game in the country isn't a state vs. state affair; it's an in-state all-star game in Florida, the East-West Shrine Game.

Vermont could do the same (East-West, North-South, whatever it likes) and continue raising money for the Shriners Hospitals. It's a pretty good bet that most of the money donated comes from the Green Mountain State anyway. New Hampshire can continue playing the CHaD game, and also continue raising money for a good cause.

The states can continue to play each other in all the other sports, like basketball and soccer and lacrosse. Those series have been much more competitive than football.

But an all-star game football game between New Hampshire and Vermont should not be a thing in 2016.