There are no bookmakers for this game whose storied rivalry goes back for more than six decades, and while we’ve got plenty of swagger in our walk this week, we can be big about it and admit that the odds are stacked against us.

The Vineyard team (Our Team) is four and six going into the Big Game while Nantucket (you know, that other island?) team is nine and one.

But this is the cup we’re talking about, and in an interview this week the Nantucket coach summed it up best: He said season records go out the window when it comes to the Island Cup.

Nobody knows that better than our own venerable coach Don Herman, who in his twenty-fourth year has seen it all. Remember 1992? That was the comeback year, and if you’ve forgotten there’s a story about it in a Gazette special section today about the game.

But that was then and this is now. Will this be a comeback year?

Flint Ranney, the Nantucket Steamship Authority governor, thinks not.

Mr. Ranney and the Gazette had a brief e-mail exchange this week over his presentation at the boat line meeting of an antique whistle for the Vineyard ferry Martha’s Vineyard. In an e-mail to Mr. Ranney the Gazette remarked favorably on the timing of his whistle diplomacy four days before the Big Game.

His reply: “Better shine up the Island Cup. We’re taking it home!”

We’ll see about that, Mr. Ranney.

May the better team win.