The last time the Canadian national team qualified was in 2000. The game that seals their faith is scheduled to be from June 29th to July. 4th in Victoria, BC.
This tournament has been in the works for the last two years after being delayed due to the pandemic. The big hope is that the tournament will go well without further hurdles, barriers, or hick-ups and that the Canadian men’s national team can win all six competitions.
That’s the main reason why it inspired Clint Hamilton to put in a bid to host the event. He say’s “It was amazing how things fell into place. Of course, when we did that no one anticipated the pandemic and the impact that’s had on the world of sports.”
He also added “The reason we went forward brazenly to get the event is we believe this could be an inflection point for the game, building off of what the Raptors did [in winning the NBA title in 2019],” he said in a recent interview. “We want this to be a celebration. We wanted basketball fans to be part of what we think is going to be a spectacular basketball competition.”
Not enough for one more Oracle miracle. pic.twitter.com/iHsen1V3NL
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 14, 2019
With the pandemic postponing things, it was disappointing, but Grunwald and Hamilton are confident that this tournament will still happen as planned and even if it seems that the Federal Government isn’t showing signs of waving the COVID-related border restrictions.
“Each team has their protocols, and the expectation is that they will arrive in Canada COVID-free,” says Hamilton. “From there they are in a very tight bubble that brings them into the living, training and competition environment and we have access to daily testing in a way that we can ensure there is no outbreak … that allows the exemption to the quarantine rules for the single sport events to occur.
But when they won the bid within a week or two, they had emails from players reaching out. He say’s “Think about it: when you’re a local organizing committee and you take this big step and you know what you want to do to help Team Canada … I can’t understate how inspiring it is to see how the players responded.”
That is very true, hopefully, after the year we have had we can see our national Basketball team can do us proud.