Basketball academy endeavours to fill niche

trevor.kenney — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:26:16 +0000

For Dave Adams, coach of the Pronghorns men's basketball team, there's no great mystery as to how he will get the Horns back in the national spotlight. It starts and ends by filling his roster with talented southern Alberta players – and to do that, the Horns must take a leadership role in the development of those kids.

"The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns have the responsibility of being the flagship program for basketball in southern Alberta, and we take that commitment extremely seriously," says Adams.

To that end, Adams and the Horns are ironing out the details for the Pronghorn Basketball Academy – a weekly training opportunity designed to fill what has become a missing link in the development of basketball players in southern Alberta. Gone from the local area are the Basketball Canada Centres for Performance and the Basketball Alberta Regional Training Centres, leaving talented, competitive young basketball players in need of the proper coaching and guidance at a critical stage in their development.

"We think this will really fill a need in the community right now," says Adams, who expects to target kids in Grades 5 to 7. "We still need to talk with the schools and do a little research but from what we understand, once kids hit Grade 8 and 9, there are good opportunities for them to play, it's that upper elementary, early middle-school age where they need some further coaching and an opportunity to play at a competitive level."

Adams need look no further than the Horns Athletic Department for an example of hitting a kid at the right stage of his development.

"Ryan Hall's (Pronghorn Athletics Manager) a prime example of a guy I distinctly remember torturing in a Grade 6 basketball camp," laughs Adams. "You could tell at the time he was a great, coachable kid who had tons of skill. Although he took a path that was an unusual one, playing his way through baseball first, he ended up being the starting point guard on a team that went to a national semifinal."

Hall had other interests and pursued a baseball scholarship in the United States, but he eventually came back to basketball, something that may not have happened had he not been nurtured in the game at an early age.

The proposed academy would begin in January and feature weekly workouts, likely on Monday or Tuesday evenings, and would be run by Adams and his Pronghorns players. The net effect is twofold, the Horns help groom future players and connect with the community at the same time.

"This is a way for them to give back to the sport, and it's a huge part of our commitment to engaging with our community," says Adams. "If we want to have fans come to our games and we really want to have people in southern Alberta support us, then we have to make sure it's a two-way street."

Should the academy prove to be successful, not only will it help the game and the region's aspiring players, it'll benefit the Horns down the road.

"If we look historically at the success of Pronghorns men's basketball, in times where we've had national prominence, it was built on the basis of good local players who decided to stay here and play for the Horns," says Adams. "We're trying to develop the future basketball star who will put on the blue and white some day."

Bibby Finds Major Decline in Teenage Interest in Pro Sports

trevor.kenney — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:39:23 +0000

Every league – including the NHL – suffering a drop in market share

Canada is supposedly a hockey-mad country with an insatiable appetite for the National Hockey League. But surprising new research findings reveal that Canadian interest in the NHL has actually declined over the past two decades.

What's more, the proportion of teenagers who follow the National Hockey League (NHL) is lower in Toronto than in any of Canada's six NHL cities.

The research, carried out by sociologist Reginald Bibby of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge and published in his new book, The Emerging Millennials, shows that since about 1990, teenage interest in the NHL has dropped from 45% to 35%.

Among adults, the percentage of fans has slipped from about 35% to 30%. The teenage decline in interest extends to all other major sports as well.

- During the glory days of the Blue Jays in the early 1990s, 33% of teenagers said they were following Major League Baseball (MLB). Today that figure stands at only 10%.

- Despite the presence of the Toronto Raptors, interest in the National Basketball Association (NBA) among teens is actually lower today (21%) than it was in the early 90s before the league expanded to Canada (27%).

- For all the exposure the National Football League (NFL) has been receiving, teenage interest has fallen from 26% to 19% over the past two decades.

- In the case of the Canadian Football League (CFL), just 14% of teens say they are currently following the league, down from 22% in the early 1990s.

"What these findings point to is the fact that the entertainment choices of young people and the rest of us have exploded," Bibby said.

"In addition, growing numbers of teens have come to Canada from countries where their sports choices have been led by soccer and basketball, rather than hockey, baseball, or football. And then there has been the ineptitude of the Maple Leafs. The result is that, in Ontario alone, the proportion of teenagers who closely follow the NHL has dropped from 40% in 1992 to 28% in 2008."

Bibby said that the patterns reflect in large part what some observers of social trends refer to as the "death of the monoculture" – where diverse consumer options are resulting in ever-increasing individual choices. It's true of music, fashion, lifestyle – and pretty much everything else.

Bibby's latest youth survey has found that "the monocultural casualties" extend to things like drinking, smoking, and sex. "Even 'vices' now have to compete for teenage attention," Bibby said. So it is that interest in the National Hockey League has taken a serious hit.

"Forget the rhetoric about the NHL needing to add teams in Canada because the country is in love with hockey," Bibby said.

"These findings suggest the NHL needs to add teams in Canada in order that more Canadians – starting with young people – will fall in love with hockey. As a key part of their attractiveness, of course, those new teams need to be competitive and entertaining – shortcomings that have been particularly blatant in the case of the Maple Leafs."

Bibby said his research also indicates that, as teens move into their 20s and 30s and beyond, their following of any given league or sport will come and go in keeping with what they consider to be of interest and value.

"For example, in the past two decades, teen interest in the NBA has waned as they have aged, while their interest in the CFL has increased. Obviously the sports one follows as a single teenager are not necessarily the sports one follows as a married parent."

The research message? Canadians' interest in hockey is hardly innate. The NHL, like every other sport, is going to have to work harder to retain and expand its market share. More Canadian teams, more accessible and affordable tickets, and a winning team in Toronto might be good places to start.

Reginald Bibby has been monitoring Canadian social trends since the mid-1970s, making his findings available through eleven best-selling books. His most recent book is The Emerging Millennials: How Canada's Newest Generation is Responding to Change and Choice (for details visit http://www.reginaldbibby.com).

The current Project Teen Canada survey was concluded in late 2008, and consists of a highly representative sample of more than 5,500 teenagers. Results are accurate within about plus or minus 3 percentage points, 19 times in 20.

Graphs which outline the research findings can be found below.

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Basketball academy endeavours to fill niche

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