{"id":63899,"date":"2020-02-26T12:16:45","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T17:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=63899"},"modified":"2025-09-30T10:03:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T14:03:33","slug":"basketball-city-2020","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/basketball-city-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa is Basketball City in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Ottawa is Basketball City in 2020\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

The enjoyment of sport has a lot to do with place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Lake Tonl\u00e9 Sap, the floating village of Chong Khneas in Cambodia, the community takes shots on a floating court. In Dubrovnik, Croatia, the City Wall Rooftop Court looks out over the old city accompanied by a backdrop of the Asiatic Sea. In New York City, considered to be the basketball capital of the world, courts are around every corner and you can hear the squeak of shoes into the wee hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Ottawa, from Acres Park and Sheffield Glen Park on Southvale Crescent to the Jack Purcell Community Centre, all ages and abilities lace up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The humble beginnings of basketball, a game that started with a peach basket and a love for competition spread quickly across the globe. James Naismith, a physical education teacher from Almonte, Ont., just 50 kilometres from Carleton, was teaching in Springfield, Mass., when he created the game in 1891. He wanted something that could be played indoors and take up minimal space while keeping violence to a minimum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basketball would later make its way to the Olympics in 1936. And with the Raptors history-changing win in June at the NBA championships, basketball has never been bigger in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n

Ottawa to Host 2020 U SPORTS Championships for Women’s and Men’s Teams<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Ottawa will be the place to be in the 2020 U SPORTS Championships<\/a>, where both men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball finals will be played for the first time in the same city. And playing the Final 8 in Ottawa is a first for the women\u2019s team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The partnership between the University of Ottawa<\/a>, Carleton<\/a> and Ottawa Sports & Entertainment Group<\/a> (OSEG) take places at TD Place<\/a>, with 16 of the best university basketball teams compete for championship title from March 5 to 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carleton\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team has reigned supreme for many years during 17 consecutive appearances at the championship since 2003 with 14 wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ravens also stepped up in the \u201860s with three appearances in the finals from 1965 to 1968. Although the University of Ottawa has never won the title, they\u2019ve made 11 appearances at the championships, twice losing to Carleton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the University of Windsor won the women\u2019s basketball championship five times in a row from 2011 to 2015, there have been four one-time winners since: Saskatchewan, McGill, Carleton and McMaster. Carleton\u2019s team took home the top prize last year after three previous tries at the finals. The University of Ottawa has never won the title, although they\u2019ve made eight appearances, the first in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alyson Bush remembers shooting hoops at six years old. In 2011, she represented Carleton at nationals and did so again in 2013. After graduation, she played professionally in Germany. When she returned to Ottawa, she played on a women\u2019s league for a few years. And although she\u2019s finally hung up her shoes, she\u2019s taken lessons from the court into her everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is definitely a lot of things that I learned from my basketball career that correlate into the real-world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s also ready to see men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball come together in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting sport to watch and having skilled teams in Ottawa makes it that much more exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many members of the basketball community are excited the Lansdowne Park venue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving a big event more central is going to be huge for the city,\u201d says Bush. \u201cIt\u2019s high-calibre basketball that everyone is going to be watching.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Leo
(Left to right) Leo Doyle, Mahamat-Ali Haggar and Frienky Sit helping to organize the 2nd Annual Ottawa Police Department Hoopstars Classic, July 20, 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Leo Doyle, who moved to Ottawa from Cape Breton, N.S., is a dedicated basketball coach for Ottawa Shooting Stars. Established in 1991, the club has expanded from a small team of young girls to over 400 kids in competitive and house leagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doyle has been awarded the Ottawa South Community Association Lifetime Achievement Award for his commitment to basketball, his coaching and mentoring of youth. He has also simultaneously built and sustained the Central Ottawa Basketball League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doyle says that OSEG\u2019s joining in the partnership represents a coming of age for Ottawa. With the new LRT system, and the decision to host both men\u2019s and women\u2019s together, Ottawa is truly putting itself on the map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of symbolism there,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to use the sport of basketball to bring the community of Ottawa together just a little closer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n

Collaboration is Essential to Grow Basketball Community<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Collaboration between the city, community, schools and clubs is essential to preparing kids to one day see themselves in the U SPORTS nationals, says Doyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe level of basketball at university doesn\u2019t become possible unless you are engaging at other levels, such as the youth levels,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Doyle believes the Ottawa basketball community has the ability to expand through collaboration and teamwork, he sees areas for improvement, such as making more spaces available to community organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He suggests that schools make gyms available during summer evenings so that Boys and Girls clubs and other volunteer-run groups can enjoy spaces that would otherwise go unused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe people who get squeezed out tend to be low-income kids, kids whose parents are working long hours (and) can\u2019t volunteer and help out with their sports, which can diminish their chances of getting involved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony House has watched the basketball community grow in Ottawa for the last 30 years. A long-time coach, he\u2019s the founder and director of Canada Topflight Academy, a prep school that combines basketball with academic goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing it from the grassroots level,\u201d he says. \u201cBasketball is booming in Ottawa and, at every level, we\u2019re seeing success because of committed volunteers and players.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selwyn de Souza, a retired high school teacher and coach, is also involved at the grassroots level. He\u2019s been all about basketball since 1974, but he\u2019s been involved with the competitive community since 1982. Although he\u2019s been retired since 2010, he still convenes with girls\u2019 basketball at the high school level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In regard to hosting women\u2019s and men\u2019s university teams together, de Souza also thinks Ottawa will emerge as a basketball leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHopefully it will rotate from region to region and conference to conference, so that everyone gets to experience it as both being a part of it and as a spectator,\u201d de Souza says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These basketball leaders agree that collaboration is the magic ingredient to sustaining a basketball community in Ottawa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Ottawa needs more than just events to make a name for itself as a basketball city. It needs the community to come together to celebrate and to engage with courts in every neighbourhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer Brenning, assistant vice-president of Carleton\u2019s Recreation and Athletics, played basketball in high school and her daughter played competitively for five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brenning says that Ottawa is a fantastic basketball city, but there are still some concerns about the decision to host men\u2019s and women\u2019s together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is some pessimism around this concept of hosting men\u2019s and women\u2019s at the same time, but we feel very strongly that our goal is to elevate the women\u2019s tournament,\u201d Brenning says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe women\u2019s national championship will be played in the largest venue that it\u2019s ever been staged and our objective is to fill the stadium for the women\u2019s event as well as the men\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the highest level of basketball in the city,\u201d Brenning says. \u201cIn fact, besides the Raptors, university basketball is the highest level of basketball in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impressive level of ball isn\u2019t too far away. The 2020 U SPORTS Final 8 Championships will be here in March, with 22 games over four days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tickets can be purchased at tdplace.ca\/tickets<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Souza, reflecting on his time with high school ball, says Ottawa is more than ready to make waves in the national ball community. It\u2019s his work within the grassroots level that has shown him that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel that the local organizing committee with our great volunteers will host an outstanding event to set a template for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—
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The enjoyment of sport has a lot to do with place. On Lake Tonl\u00e9 Sap, the floating village of Chong Khneas in Cambodia, the community takes shots on a floating court. In Dubrovnik, Croatia, the City Wall Rooftop Court looks out over the old city accompanied by a backdrop of the Asiatic Sea. In New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":63904,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[18],"cu_story_tag":[1928],"class_list":["post-63899","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-athletics-recreation","cu_story_tag-athletics"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/63899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/63899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97849,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/63899\/revisions\/97849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=63899"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=63899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}