South Shore CVA’s Candy Bowl brings DII football to Brickyard Stadium for another exciting contest

Hobart High School’s Brickyard Stadium was alive with football fans on December 6 as the Hillsdale College Chargers clashed against the Upper Iowa State University Peacocks at the South Shore Convention & Visitors Authority (CVA)’s annual Albanese Candy Bowl!

Formerly the Crossroads Bowl, the Albanese Candy Bowl is one of only two NCAA Division II bowl games. The game always features a team from two conferences, one from the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) and one from the Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC). Both teams traveled from different states to compete in Northwest Indiana.

“This has been a really unique and outstanding opportunity for our team, coaches, and fans. The experience for our young men on the football team and our coaching staff has been outstanding. The past couple of days, they’ve had a really great experience here,” said Upper Iowa University President, Kathy Franken. “We travel heavily with our fans, so we’re excited for the day. Today we’ve been at the End Zone with our Peacock fans, which we call our Peacock Tailgate association. It’s a lot of our parents who follow the football team; they come and gather for a couple of hours before the game to get fired up and ready for a victory.”

The crowd was electric as the teams took the field, an excitement that’d been building since the Candy Bowl Banquet at the Dean and Barbara White Community Center the previous night. Fans were also invited to attend pre-game parties gameday morning at Granger’s at the Clock Tower and the End Zone.

The Candy Bowl is always a great excuse for friends and family to get together to enjoy some top-tier football while attracting new visitors to see what the Region has to offer.

“Northwest Indiana sports tourism in general, helps everybody. It helps offset your tax dollars when visitors come to town and spend their money in your area. When we bring in an event like this where we’ve got a few hundred fans, it helps the area,” said Jimmy Nelson, director of sports for the South Shore CVA. 

Both teams came into the game off a hot season. The Peacocks (8-3) had a perfect 5-0 record at home this year while the Chargers (6-5) closed out their season with a four game winning streak, making this title competition even more heated.

“This game is a great opportunity to face a quality opponent and extend the postseason for both teams,” said the Commissioner of the Great Lakes Valley Conference, Jim Naumovich. 

Fans were even able to get in on the on-field action during the game’s halftime show. Randomly selected fans were able to head onto the field at halftime for a chance to win a free year of Jimmy John’s if they successfully kicked a field goal.

The Candy Bowl was only made possible thanks to the work of the South Shore CVA, its partnership with Albanese Confectionary, and the City of Hobart. All three entities are working towards the same goal: shining a light on all of the awesome and fun things the Region has to offer.

“We couldn’t do this without a village. It takes a village to run an event like this, and we’ve got great partnerships that make that possible,” said Nelson. “We had the chance to partner with Albanese. When you look at the city of Hobart and businesses who you could partner with, you look at a company like Albanese. It’s a large, very hard working company that is expanding and doing great things for the community all of the time. 

The game concluded with Upper Iowa taking the victory with a score of 37-28. The entire game was livestreamed by Heartlands Sports Network for fans who weren’t able to attend in-person. Stats from this year’s game can be accessed at southshorecva.com/crossroads-bowl.With another Candy Bowl on the books, South Shore CVA is looking forward to an exciting 2026. To learn more about what’s happening in the Region, visit southshorecva.com.