You hear it again and again this time of year: Christmas tournament games don't mean anything. Well, some do and some don't.

Yeah, we all know they don't count in the regular season standings, but I come from the school that says it counts every time you lace 'em up. At least if you're putting your best team out there to compete. There are times when coaches don't, for one reason or another and these games lose a lot of their meaning.
But I've seen a lot of memorable Christmas tournament games, many of these at the Capital City Hoop Classic that starts Wednesday at the Augusta Civic Center.
One that comes to mind was the Bangor-Valley matchup in the 2003 championship game. Everyone claims to have seen this one, but the crowd was fairly small when this got over around 11 p.m.
To refresh your memory, Valley won, and went on to win the Class D state championship. Bangor went on to win the Class A state title that year on Joe Campbell's buzzer beater. The claim by many is Bangor didn't go all out that night against Valley. They had a game the next night and rested a number of starters.
it didn't look that way to me. Campbell was clearly outplayed by Valley's Brian andre, now at Maine, and Bangor point guard Zak Ray was no match for Valley's Nick Pelotte.
Valley won fair and square in what for me was one of the most memorable games of the year. Did it count? It certainly did for me.