Prince George’s Indigenous basketball tournament is looking to duplicate its success in year two.
The Lheidli Classic is set for November 14-16 from the Cedars Christian and Prince George Secondary School gyms, with a third location to soon be determined.
Organizer, Erica McLean told Vista Radio the pool of teams coming to the Northern Capital is expanding.
“We have some returning strong teams like Similkameen and Burnaby and we are incredibly excited to welcome some of the big impact, high energy teams from the north west coast like Hartley Bay, Haisla and some of the Nisga’a teams as well.”
“We are starting to pick up momentum over the last couple of weeks having a lot of interest. Last year, we ended up with 11 teams in the men’s division last and as it sits today we are close to 20 teams for both the men’s and ladies divisions.”
She added the teams who participated last year had a lot of positive feedback on having a tournament like this in our city.
“A lot of the stories that we heard from our teams that came here was how incredibly convenient Prince George is. The Lheidli T’enneh territory is such an ideal location for a tournament like this and the feedback that we got from teams is that it’s a great travel location for them.”
“What we are seeing and what we are learning is that this world is very big and this world is building. We have so much interest from teams that we haven’t connected with before.”
McLean added the organizers wanted to book the tournament that avoided conflict with similar events.
The Burnaby Chiefs, who won the inaugural title in the men’s division last year, are returning in 2025.
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