The Toronto Raptors will dribble and dunk on Blanshard Street in an open practice, followed by an intra-squad game, Sept. 30 at 6 p.m. at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. Tickets by donation will be available beginning at 10 a.m. Friday via selectyourtickets.com. Donations for entry are between $20 to $40 with proceeds going to support Indigenous organizations on the Island.
The NBA club had earlier announced it will be holding its 2022-23 training camp at CARSA gymnasium on the University of Victoria campus from Sept. 26 to Oct. 1, but only announced the public access details Tuesday. The rest of training camp will be closed to the public.
Island basketball fans have reacted strongly for recent events. The open intra-squad game played in 2017 in CARSA gym, the last time the Raptors held training camp in Victoria, sold out quickly in the 2,300-seat facility. The Canada-Argentina 2023 World Cup qualifying game last month at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre attracted a sellout crowd of 7,000 fans. The Tokyo Olympics qualifying tournament last summer at the Memorial Centre was completely sold out before public-health pandemic restrictions limited attendance to zero for the preliminary round and to just 10 per cent for the playoff round.
The Raptors will be competing on an historic floor at the Memorial Centre. It is the Oracle Arena floor from Oakland, California, on which the club won the 2019 NBA title in Game 6 of the final. It was purchased by the Friends of Victoria Basketball last year for $270,000. Friends of Victoria Basketball is a not-for-profit organization that staged the Olympic qualifying tournament last summer and World Cup qualifier last month. The floor has been used for all basketball events at the Memorial Centre since last year.
The Raptors, meanwhile, will break camp in Victoria to play five preseason games, including Oct. 2 against the Utah Jazz at Rogers Place in Edmonton and Oct. 14 against the Boston Celtics at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
The Raptors, much like the Toronto Blue Jays, hold unique places in Canadian sports as the only Canadian franchises in the NBA and MLB, respectively. That has led to national followings for both clubs. This will be the 12th time the Raptors have held their training camp outside Toronto and the seventh time in B.C. The Raptors trained on the Lower Mainland in 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016. While Victoria has a basketball pedigree, so does Halifax on the East Coast, and the Raptors went to Nova Scotia for their training camps in 2011 and 2012.
Victoria is becoming a second home for Raptors head coach Nick Nurse, who guided the team to the 2019 NBA championship. He was assistant coach of the team in 2017 when it last held its training camp on the Island. Nurse coached Canada in the Tokyo Olympic qualifier last summer at the Memorial Centre and returned to guide Canada in its Americas regional 2023 World Cup qualifying game victory over Argentina last month at the Memorial Centre.
The joke is locals now ask him for directions.
“We always like coming out here. We get treated very well and the facilities are great,” said Nurse, when in Victoria last month for the Canada-Argentina World Cup qualifier.
“We’re pretty comfortable here now and know our way around and know just about every place to play basketball in town.”
cdheensaw@timescolonist.com
