One of Richmond's long-standing sports events tips off this weekend at the Thompson Community Centre. And Bruce Watson, one of the organizers of the annual Dolphin Classic, put in perspective the longevity of the homegrown basketball tournament which celebrates its 28th year.
"We've been doing (organizing) it longer than anything any of us have done in our lives. We've been doing it longer than any of us have been married, longer than any of us have had a job. It's the one thing in our lives - and it will stop eventually, one day I just don't know when - that we have done consecutively."
It was 1986 and Richmond was still in the midst of a rich period of basketball supremacy when the first Dolphin Park Classic hit the asphalt for some four-on-four action.
Two years previous, Watson was a member of the Steveston Packers basketball team that won the B.C. High School Boys championship, beating their cross-town rivals from Richmond High. The Colts would go on to win three championships over the next four years.
The time was ripe for a grassroots, summertime celebration of the sport. So, Watson, and a group of other Steveston High School grads - Bira Bindra, Taj Johal, Tony Wong-Hen, Garth Robertson, plus some other friends - set up a day-long tournament at Dolphin Park located near Garden City Road and Francis Road.
"Back when we started we were 19, we just wanted a tournament," Watson said. "We'd heard about all these other big tournaments in the states like Rucker Park (Harlem). And we thought about it in our own small way, why can't we have a summer tournament and invite the best players we know?" That summer in 1986, the seeds were sown, and the basketball tournament is still thriving generations later, with much of the credit going not to the tournament's organizers, but another individual who helped shape the game in Richmond.
"Richmond had such a proud and strong basketball tradition. And a lot of the credit has to go to coaches at the high school level, and feeder schools - the junior highs. And it goes back to one particular person, Robert Carkner who ended up being principal first at London (Junior Secondary), then Steveston and finally Richmond high."
Watson said it was Carkner who started the Biddy basketball program for elementary school students in Richmond.
Biddy Basketball provides shorter goal heights, various ball sizes, and a shorter distance free throw line for seven to 10-yearold athletes so they can learn proper shooting techniques more effectively and improve dribbling, passing, and catching skills at the same time.
"To have something like that in the city of Richmond where kids from a really age have a ball in their hands and learn to dribble and shoot a little bit, that was just huge," Watson said.
While the venue shifted several years ago from Dolphin Park to the Thompson Community Centre, the action on the court has remained at a high level.
Bolstering that is the participation of some college and university teams making up the 12 mens and four women's entries.
Also taking part are teams from SFU, Thompson Rivers University from Kamloops, and UFV from Abbotsford.
The remainder is made up of teams cobbled together from players from across the Lower Mainland, as well as south of the border.
Admission is free to the tournament which gets underway Friday evening and ends Sunday afternoon.
In addition to the games over the weekend there is are dunk and three-point shooting contests which are traditionally fan favourites.
For more information about the Dolphin Basketball Classic at the Thompson Community Centre (5151 Granville Ave.), isit dolphinbasketball.com.
