The Filipino community wrapped up their third annual Basketbol Balik Laro basketball season on Jun. 25 in front of a raucous crowd.
Basketball is the national sport of the Philippines and Balik Laro means back to the game, says tournament organzier, Ding Dayawon, who noted it was great to bring Filipinos together.
“The best thing is camaraderie; how to meet each other from different places LeRoy, Humboldt.”
The tournament featured seven teams from around the region including Humboldt, St. Brieux, LeRoy, Watrous, Melfort, Drake, and Lanigan.
The tournament started on Apr. 30 with teams playing the other six teams once through the regular season.
After each team completed their six regular season games the top four teams advanced to the semi-finals, with the two teams left standing competing for the championship.
After seven games of fierce basketball competition, the two teams left standing were Humboldt and St. Brieux.
With fans from both teams cheering loud and proud throughout the entire game the players on the floor went back and forth matching each other shot for shot until the dying moments when St. Brieux grabbed the lead for good as they beat Humboldt by four points.
Dawayon says it was really nice to see all the support from the crowd throughout the game.
“It was a very excellent game,” he says.
The tournament started three years ago when the Humboldt Regional Newcomers Centre hosted a one-day basketball tournament in LeRoy to gauge an interest and were blown away with the results, says Executive Director, Janine Hart.
“We thought maybe we’d have three, four teams… and we ended up with 14 teams.”
“We were overwhelmed by the amount of teams that came out that year. We had Porcupine Plain, Melfort, Wynyard, there were teams from everywhere… and we just couldn’t feel any better for something like this to continue so if that happens we’ve done a good job.”
After that first year the Newcomers Centre handed the tournament over to Dayawon who turned the tournament into its current format.
Hart says the reason for starting the tournament was part of their organizations mandate.
“We know that exercise is important. You can be isolated when you first arrive and so to develop something that people are passionate about they’re going to come out to it because they enjoy it but they’re also going to get some fun and socialize with other people.”
Dayawon says they are already planning next years tournament and says he expects it will once again be held in Humboldt.
The hope and plan for next year is to include people from other nationalities, says Hart.
“We are going to encourage a larger participation group but it’s still going to be headed by the Filipinos and it’ll just get bigger and better than what we anticipated. We started with a very small idea and three years later it’s grown to this.”
