The Calgary Surge has become known over the past two years as the club that takes the sport of basketball to community, everywhere from recreation centres to outdoor courts deep in the heart of local neighbourhoods.

But on Oct. 12, the Surge added a new location to their growing list of venues, with a half-sized professional basketball court inside CF Chinook Centre.

The goal, said Calgary Surge Vice-Chairman and President Jason Ribeiro, was very much in line with the overall mission to meet basketball fans—especially those younger fans of the sport—where they are at.

“I think, by the time the weekend is over, we’ll have over 144 kids taking part in free programming. That was really important to us, to bring this product to mall-goers, but to do it free, to promote accessibility, to tie into advocacy for bringing back play to our communities,” he said.

The court, set up next to H&M, Zara, and The Bay in the south end of CF Chinook Centre came about as a desire for the mall to bring additional experiences to shoppers, said Ribeiro.

The court setup was the second partnership between the team and the mall, with the first being a pop-up that opened in February ahead of the team’s season opener in May.

Families were invited to sign up their children for the event earlier this month, with Ribeiro saying that the team didn’t know what to expect in terms of turnout.

“We didn’t know if we’d get one person or 100 people, or whether it would be drop in sessions, but the fast and short of it is we put up a webpage and said ‘free to play for anyone who wanted to focus on the fundamentals of basketball.’ That’s our role, to really grow the game,” Ribeiro said.

“We put it out at some ungodly hour in the night, and by the time we woke up in the morning, it was completely full. That was something we didn’t expect.”

He said that it spoke to the increasing demand for basketball in Calgary, and the need to address the inequities that have existed within the city about who has access to sport.

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t put my Sport Calgary [board of directors[ Vice Chair hat on right now, and say this is also filling in the gaps over years that we’re neglecting. I’m so proud of the work that we’ve done in all four corners of the city, but particularly in the Northeast. There’s been a lot of people that have been responsible for growing the game, and our responsibility is really just to fuel that growth, but then close the loop on actually making these things happen,” he said.

“I think you’ll see an announcement coming in the weeks ahead, where there may be a Surge court that’s opening in addition to the one that we did in Century Gardens.”

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Fundamentals of the game

Calgary Surge Player Development Coach Dean Haidar, who also owns youth basketball coaching company Family Hoops, was on hand to provide his skills for free to Calgary youth.

He called CF Chinook Centre an amazing venue for basketball.

“Just to walk in the mall right here and see a basketball court where normally people will be shopping, is just amazing… especially for the kids,” Haidar said.

“It’s just a great opportunity for the kids, first and foremost. But above all, it’s bringing kids from all different areas of the city to come play basketball in a central location, meet different kids, and build relationships that probably last longer than a game of basketball—which is most important to us.”

He said that the Surge offering free coaching, especially at a professional level, was a big deal.

“When I took this on this endeavour with this camp, I said, ‘I hope we get majority kids that haven’t necessarily had an opportunity to have that coach,’ because I was a younger kid growing up in life, I hadn’t really had an opportunity to have a camp like that,” Haider said.

“I’m originally from Ontario, and obviously in Ontario, basketball’s a bit bigger down there in terms of the sport. But in Calgary, it’s just growing phenomenally. Every day I walk around the city, everyone’s involved with the Surge, everyone’s asking about the Surge. The community game is getting much bigger.”

Haidar said that the one takeaway he hoped kids would walk away with after the weekend was the value of relationship building, and some fundamentals they can use no matter what level of basketball they aspire to.

“I hope I can impart them with one or two things that they take to another team and they say, ‘hey Coach, I know how to do this. I know that terminology. I’m familiar with that because I learned from coaching,’” he said.

“Obviously in an hour and a half session, it’s tough to get out a lot of information and stuff like that, but if I can impart them with some drills they can do on their own time, at their house, they can work on their game.”