Vancouver’s long-running street basketball tournament has dunked its last. Hoops on the River won’t be back, its organizers announced this week.
Maybe it’s a victim of its own success. The charity tournament, which was launched in 2005 by Share Vancouver, has grown steadily — with a one-year hiatus in 2013, when it was taken over by the One Team Kids Foundation — to the point where its organizers now say they’re overwhelmed.
Sponsorships and finances are fine, they said; what never materialized is the massive amounts of volunteer labor needed to operate dozens of simultaneous 3-on-3 games involving thousands of players and their spectating families and friends.
“These tournaments were magical,” said Eric Anderson, president of the One Team Kids Foundation.
“But as the event got bigger and bigger, it required more and more personal sacrifice from event committee members,” he said. “Several found that as life changes occurred, they were no longer able to dedicate time.”
It’s possible, Anderson added, that a basketball company called Shoot 360 may try to program a similar community-basketball event for the same weekend, Aug. 19-20, in the same spot, Esther Short Park.
