News

All across Canada, school is out for the summer this week. For some of the county's best basketball talent, the question is whether it is ever coming back.

Funding cuts have hit Canada Basketball's National Elite Development Program (NEDA) hard, and the centralization plan that brought together the best high school age boys and girls to Hamilton to live, train and go to school has been scrapped.

Katherine and Michelle Plouffe vividly remember the day when they learned the program they moved from Edmonton to be a part of was in jeopardy.

Then interim girls coach Mark Walton gathered the 16-year-old twin sisters around and delivered the news: The program was being cut.

"There were tears, people were in shock," Katherine said.

The Plouffe sisters in particular. The pair of six-footers made the commitment to move out East for Grades 11 and 12 - NEDA participants study a compressed curriculum at a local high school and are billeted with families - because they felt the sacrifice would be worth it as they aspire to U.S. college scholarships, representing Canada internationally and playing professionally.

And it has been, according to their mother.

"I've seen huge strides in their basketball abilities and their overall development," said Laurie Plouffe. "It's obvious the program has produced significant results."

With more to come: Thanks to the core of NEDA-trained girls on their roster, Canada's Under-18 girls team finished a best-ever second to the United States at last summer's U18 FIBA America's Championship and will be shooting for Canada's first medal at the U19 World Championships beginning July 23rd in Thailand.

The story was similar on the boys' side, where a team with a base of players from the NEDA program helped Canada win a bronze medal at the FIBA America's championship last summer, enabling Canada to qualify for the FIBA U19 World Championships beginning July 2nd in Auckland, New Zealand. Earlier this month, the men's junior national team boys program travelled to France and won the prestigious Mondial Juniors de Basket, earning wins against Lithuania, France and Puerto Rica.

Kelly Olynyk, a 6-foot-10 forward with a sharp perimeter skills developed at NEDA, was the tournament's most valuable player.

"There is no doubt having these players together and being able to work with them together has made a difference," said Greg Francis, the men's NEDA coach who will be taking the U19 boys to New Zealand. "You used to see teams like Argentina, and they would play so together, they would just roll, and now you know how they did that. They played together."

Under normal circumstances, the success would be a feather in the cap of Canada Basketball, which launched the ambitious centralization program modelled after similar programs in France and Australia in 2006-07. But the development of basketball in Canada is so lacking in infrastructure that dozens of top high school boys have opted to go to the United States to enhance their game and their reputation, with uneven results.

How confusing is the picture? At the tournament in France, the team representing the U.S. was an American high school all-star entry sponsored by a video-game company and featuring two top Canadian prospects playing down south: Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph.

The program had started with a promise of $500,000 for four years from Sport Canada, but trouble began when Road to Excellence - the funding body for summer Olympic sports - tightened its criteria to support programs most likely to produce medals for Canada in the upcoming quadrennial. A program like NEDA, developing athletes who will not be ready for the current quadrennial, but potentially the one after that, was no longer a priority.

"It's unfortunate," said Canada Basketball executive director Wayne Parrish. "Establishing a program like NEDA was a dream for a long time, and now that it's running and showing results, it's going away. We've argued forcefully at every level, but Road to Excellence has their criteria - which fine - but what's missing is a recognition that team sports need a different criteria."

But all is not yet lost. Their success and the fact that eight girls from this year's group still have to finish high school has encouraged Walton, a retired teacher who coached Hamilton Cathedral High School to three provincial championships - with logistical, if not financial support from Canada Basketball - to try and keep the girls program going as an elite club side. The boys, with just two players eligible to return, don't have the same urgency.

"The girls don't want to go back to their high school situations because they've seen the effect on their game and their growth being in this kind of environment has had," Walton said.

After a series of meetings with parents, they've come up with a plan to try and raise a $120,000 budget - this on top of the $3,000 annual fee parents chipped in this year to make up for what was already a shortfall in Canada Basketball's funding.

They're seeking sponsors, and there will be fundraisers, coaching clinics and basketball camps.

"We need people to step up to the charity stripe," says Walton, invoking an apt basketball metaphor. "But I'm 100-per-cent confident that it can be done. I want it to make it an ongoing thing. Instead of being supported by Canada Basketball or Sport Canada, we'll do it ourselves."