The Prince Albert Basketball Association (PABA) aimed to give the sport a boost in the city of Prince Albert with its Winter Madness Tournament at the CPAC Gym in Carlton on Saturday.
PABA Chair Ermar “Don” Maquilan said the organization is open to everyone, and they wanted to make their presence known in the community.
“We’re a non-profit organization and we cater basketball tournaments,” Maquilan explained. “Our main goal is to just promote community enjoyment, camaraderie through sports, through the game of basketball. We’re open to all races, everybody, all ages.”
Maquilan said they host tournaments three to four times a year. The Winter Madness tournament ran all day at CPAC and featured six teams. Maquilan said interest is growing for recreational basketball in Prince Albert.
The tournament was originally going to be a three-on-three tournament but the PABA decided to change formats. The Three-on-Three tournament was open to youth age 9 to 13 but the Winter Madness Tournament featured a mix of ages on teams.
“We can’t get enough teams for that one so we just switched for this one, which in turn had a good turnout,” Maquilan said.
Each team was guaranteed two games before a playoff began and the medal round. He said logistically the new format made more sense.
Maquilan said that there is interest from other communities in recreational basketball.
“We don’t just cater Prince Albert,” Maquilan said. “(Through) word of mouth (and) social media (we) spread the news. We also have friends from Saskatoon and all over Saskatchewan.”
Other tournaments bring in players from Saskatoon and Swift Current. For the next tournament Maquilan projects 12 teams will be in Prince Albert.
Maquilan said that they like to use both the CPAC and Gold Gym at Carlton for tournaments as much as possible. He explained that the organizing could not have happened with Trevor McKay from Urban Sole and Underground Performance.
“We partnered together to organize this event,” he said.
Maquilan said that he wants to keep growing the PABA.
“Basketball is a popular sport,” he said. “We only started small for this one and then it just grew bigger every year. Before we (could) barely find players to complete a four-team tourney, but now we’re we have six teams, so that’s a good improvement.
“We just continue to grow so I’m very excited for this one. It’s not an easy thing to organize, but when you see people having fun and when you see the bond, what we achieve here, it’s very fulfilling. It’s very worthwhile.”
According to the PABA Facebook page the Champion of Winter Madness was Team Randell. McKay was named Most Valuable Player for Winter Madness.
The Prince Albert Basketball Association is not to be confused with the Prince Albert Community Basketball Association, a youth basketball organization.
