Maht Mahs gymnasium in Port Alberni saw a lot of junior basketball on Nov. 29 and Nov. 30 as dozens of Nuu-chah-nulth youth laced up for a jamboree-style tournament hosted by Tseshaht Lighting.
The two-day program included four U13 girls teams, three U13 boys teams and five U17 boys teams. Unfortunately, no U17 girls played in the event, according to organizer and Tseshaht Lightning coach Ed Nasimius Ross.
“It was a packed house all the time,” said Tseshaht Lighting assistant coach Len Watts. “Just about every game was filled right up with parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles coming out and supporting the kids.”
“That’s why we host it, just so kids have the opportunity to come out and play against other teams, gauge where they’re at and hopefully have the experience of playing competitive basketball,” he added.
Other than some unruly fans and one incident in a U17 boys game, Watts said everything went really well.
“It was good to see the kids battle it out and have fun,” said Watts. “We had a lot of help from community. It was great to just give a space for Nuu-chah-nulth to play basketball.”
He went on to note that they had one score keeper all weekend who did an “awesome” job with all 13 games.
Nasimius told the Ha-shilth-sa that he’s been getting a lot of text messages about the incident that occurred in the second quarter of one of the U17 boys games.
“It got intense and it got aggressive,” said Nasimius. “I am aware what’s going on and we’re going to get better for it. Some things happened in the tournament with sportsmanship. We as tournament organizers, we see it. We are probably going to start introducing our own witwaak again into the games.”
“One kid got shoved and smacked his head,” Watts said. “It got a little rough. I had to talk to the coaches to tell them to calm their players down. After that, it calmed down and the game went on, but that game almost got cancelled because of the roughness.”
Watts said in addition to bringing in a witwaak, they are considering developing a “code of conduct” for fans after some “rude comments” were spewed from the bleachers.
“Some fans get right riled up,” he said.
In Nuu-chah-nulth culture, a ‘witwaak’ (or warrior) is an individual that plays an important role in maintaining order and laws in the community. When it comes to basketball, the witwaak would work together with the referees to keep the peace.
“The witwaak will hold the integrity of the floor. If things get out of hand, it won’t just be on the refs. They’ll stop the game,” said Nasimius.
Watts went on to say that the reason they only had one ref was to keep the costs down.
“The entrance fee literally just pays for refs and for the rental of the gym. One ref can’t see the other side and the other side of the court is where the fouls were happening,” said Watts.
This is the second basketball event Tseshaht has hosted in the past year; over the May long weekend the Lightning hosted an open hoops tournament for Indigenous and non-Indigenous players that featured six divisions.
Tseshaht is planning to host another youth hoopfest in January or early February 2025, depending on facility scheduling.
