News, Sports

Women’s basketball camp

Capt Russ Payne, foreground, and Acadia University men’s coach Kevin Duffie lead development drills at the 2017 women’s regional development camp.
Photo: Sara White, The Aurora

Women invited to regional basketball development camp

By Sara White, Managing editor,
The Aurora

Interest continues in building CAF women’s basketball, with volunteers working now to schedule a development camp alongside the Atlantic Regional men’s tournament in Halifax from February 20 to 23.

Capt Russ Payne organized the camp at 14 Wing Greenwood in 2017, as the base hosted the men’s Atlantic finals. This was the second year for a women’s program, which started in Gagetown in 2016. Capt Payne is leading the planning for this year’s camp.

“Last year, it went really well – the girls said 10 times better and more valuable than the first year,” he says. “We had them in the gym twice a day, once with a guest coach and once doing game time development, where we’d play, stop and talk about what was unfolding, and then play on.”

Capt Payne had the help last year of Acadia University men’s basketball coach Kevin Duffie and Mount St. Vincent University’s women’s coach, Mark Forward. Both return again this year at the Halifax camp, and Capt Payne hopes numbers will increase from 2017’s 13 women.

“Ideally, we’d see this camp and player skills grow so we could put together a regional women’s team, and maybe they could travel the same time as the annual CAF’s national men’s championship,” Capt Payne says. “As far as I know, there’s never been a CAF national women’s basketball program – but there could be.”

Women interested in the February development camp should contact their base sports coordinator by the second week of February. The camp expenses and paperwork are covered by TD allocations. At 14 Wing Greenwood, interested women should contact Graham White, 902-765-1494 local 5753 or graham.white2@forces.gc.ca.