Streetball is basket-brawl for 3-on-3 players

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A nice sunny day, a basket-ball hoop and a ball, some friends to play a little three-on-three: a good, relaxing time.

Except nobody told the competitors at this annual Edmonton streetball tournament about the relaxing part. As the tournament went on, intensity climbed. By the time the elite finals were held, the competition had become a basketball version of survival of the fittest.

Held on the weekend of July 10 and 11 in the parking lot east of Westmount Shopping centre, these were the most successful streetball games ever held in Edmonton. More than 2,100 participants made up 525 teams for the two-day tournament, which was watched by an estimated 5,000 spectators.

They were also a part of the most successful streetball tournament in Canada. This hybrid sport is a bit of a growth industry, ballooning in Canada from a first three-on-three tournament in Toronto in 1990 to an eight-city tour in 1993, with national finals set for Toronto on the last weekend in August. Winners of the men's elite division in each city win the trip to Toronto for the finals.

This prize brought out the best players: former-pros and university players, either huge men with pretty good hands or smaller men with lightning-quick moves, but all of them tough. And then they went at it.

Team Unreal, a collection of Calgarians, beat Edmonton K-Swiss 16-15 on a foul throw by Mark Loria, a former University of Calgary Dinosaur, who had missed three or four in a row during the latter stages of the game. Two Edmontonians who played for UofC - Brian Maskowich, who played professionally in England, and Ian Minifee, as well as former Mount Royal College Cougar Ray Raymond - rounded out Team Unreal.

Edmonton K-Swiss jumped into an early lead, led by U of Alberta grad Dave Youngs. But they wrestled their way into foul trouble, with Dino grad Rick Pease fouling out. The game momentum changed when Team Unreal's Minifee hit a couple of unreal shots from downtown and the three remaining Edmontonians began to tire. Chris Overwater, another former Dino, was crushed to the pavement with the score tied at 12, but because Pease had left the game, he had to get up, lick his wounds and continue.

With the score even at 15, a foul like many other things that haven't been called was given against K-Swiss's Ken Larson, a former university national champion with the University of Victoria. Larson was disgusted, but Loria's foul-shooting form had been awful, so there was hope. The money shot Loria, though, hit nothing but net and he and his mates were off to Toronto.

Native former Golden Bear star Rick Stanley's team, In the Nik of Time, had been eliminated by Edmonton K-Swiss in the semi-finals.

The woman's elite final was a tamer affair, with 3 Women & A Baby (Cori Blakebrough, Veronica denOustends and Wendy Klassen, the first two former Dinos and Canadian national team players) crushing The Squad, of Edmonton, 16-7, Teresa Diachuk, Patti Smith, Trish Campbell and Karen Holburt were no match for their southern opponents, who dominated the match throughout.

The weekend wasn't just all competition, however, the event earned a good deal of money for the Alberta Basketball Association, said ABA Program Co-ordinator Marvin Dobish.

"We'll put the money straight back into development of basketball in Alberta," he said, "so the ABA is a major beneficiary."

But so were the competitors: the weather co-operated and the thousands of players on dozens of courts attest to the growing popularity of basketball in this country.