A sentence I never thought I'd type:

This is no time to criticize the CIAC.

(No, really).

The state's governing body of high school sports has practiced particular patience and prudence in a pandemic, working with medical officials, other state education officials and Gov. Lamont, delivering measured, responsible messages to the masses. The essence of good leadership.

Kids, coaches and anyone else with an affinity for local sports were offered some hope Tuesday, when a CIAC source spoke of the likeliest path — for right now anyway — that fall sports return.

The two-minute drill version: Practices by mid-September and an abbreviated schedule of games in traditional fall sports by later in the month. Regional schedules, more and more games on weekends and potentially regionalized tournaments in early November replacing the traditional state tournament. (More details in the accompanying news story.)

Ideal? Hardly. Sort of like when you're famished and your only option is kale. But you take what you can get.

Yet when the news broke Tuesday on social media of sports' potential return, out came all the I-told-you-sos, dime store epidemiologists, alarmists, doomsayers and Grinches Who Stole Football Season who pooh-poohed the idea as if it were dumber than the one-out bunt.

I get it. People like offering their opinions regardless of whether we ask for them. But what's the harm in planning, especially when this is all dictated by public health metrics anyway? If it's too dangerous, it won't happen. Capeesh?

Full disclosure: I have a 10-year-old. I'm not thrilled about sending him back to school in August/September. I'd rather schools stayed closed until January, give science a chance to tame the virus and play all three sports seasons between January and June of 2021. They'd require the same sacrifices as the current plan, including abbreviated seasons and schedules. We'd just buy more time, hopeful that the science community is correct when it says they'll be some kind of treatment/vaccine in the fourth quarter of this year.

But if we are going back to school and sports next month, it's really not my place to bellyache. My place is to educate my son as much as I can, practice daily mask-wearing around the house to acclimate him to what school might be like and do my part in 100 other ways.

In other words, don't be like the dopey Miami Marlins and screw up everything by being comprehensively stupid. Our opinions aren't as relevant as our diligence, even in an era where whining on Facebook has replaced actually doing something to solve a problem.

Yes, we run the risk of the season starting and stopping. There are a zillion of factors that cause consternation as well. But nobody — not even someone on Facebook — knows what this virus will look like in a month. Or two months. Or whether science hits a grand slam. So we work with the facts as we have them and help the kids as best we can.

Why is that such a hard concept?

Besides, this could be fun. ECC officials are discussing regional scheduling that might look something like this:

Football divisions, for example, would be based on geography, using Norwich as a demarcation line. All points north would play in a division with a five or six game regular season schedule. So would all points south. Not all teams would play each other. Games would be as fair as possible, thus making it unlikely that Montville would play NFA. And maybe this year's "state tournament" would be replaced by a North vs. South ECC title game.

What, Killingly vs. NFA wouldn't be a fun night? All last season's game produced was a hook-and-ladder on the final play of the game that ultimately rallied NFA from eight points down in the last two minutes.

The point of this goes back to kale. This is a pandemic. We take what we can get.

Kudos to the ECC and CIAC peeps to try to evolve with the facts as they keep changing. Sure beats whining about them in the pathetic attempt to know everything about everything.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro