CYO basketball registration open
The St. Catharines CYO Rebels Basketball Association opened its registration Aug. 1 for its Junior NBA, house league and travel team programs.
The association is eagerly anticipating the start of its season at the newly renovated Ridley College Fieldhouse.
“Ridley had its big renovation of its fieldhouse and it has been converted into three full gyms, two of which have spectator seating, and the third gym is a practice gym. If you haven’t seen it, the facility is unreal,” Rebels vice-president Frank Keltos said. “We are booking five days or nights at Ridley so the majority of our club teams will be practising out of Ridley and most of our house leagues will run out of Ridley on Saturdays.”
It’s a great new home for CYO basketball.
“We are going to have three gyms on Saturday which is great for logistical purposes for convenors and whatnot. With busy schedules and people multi-tasking with other things in their lives, we will have the ability to help each other in one facility,” he said. “One person can be there and kind of oversee what is going on and if any problems occur.”
Keltos is excited for Year 1 of the partnership with Ridley College and how the partnership will develop in future years.
“We have ideas and thoughts to try to integrate with their leadership courses at Ridley to get their students involved in helping out with the program in regards to scorekeeping and some of them learning how to be officials and other duties,” he said. “Over the next few years, we will try and get that set up and this year we are hoping to get a schedule put together for them and they can integrate that in Year 2.”
Parents are urged to sign their children up as soon as possible, especially for the Junior NBA program, which had a waiting list last year.
“We have spots open as of right now,” Keltos said.
The Junior NBA program is for kids ages four to seven, who are beginning in basketball and it’s run through Basketball Canada, using its curriculum. The program is designed to last for 12 weeks but the Rebels run the program for 15 weeks.
Last year, CYO basketball had more than 500 players registered in its programs, including 300 in house leagues, 115 in Junior NBA and 132 travel team players.
“I was happy with that and this year we have coaches in place for all our select teams but one. We need one for our atom girls team,” he said. “We didn’t have a novice girls team last year and that happens when you don’t have that coach to move on to the next age group. But we have some young coaches that we are really excited about. We have a Grade 8 girls team and we haven’t had a Grade 8 team for a couple of years because of COVID.”
Leagues planned this season by CYO include: Junior NBA; novice co-ed for Grades 1 to 4; novice girls and boys for Grades 2-4; atom boys and atom girls for Grades 5 and 6; bantam boys and girls for for Grades 7 and 8; and high school co-ed for Grades 9-12.
Athletes interested in playing on the travel basketball teams must register in house league before travel tryouts start in the second week of September. If they don’t make the travel teams, they are automatically registered for house league. If they make the travel team, the house league registration is applied towards the travel team registration.
Those interested in coaching the atom girls travel team, or coaching and refereeing at the house league level should contact Keltos at frank.keltos@gmail.com or Gerry McIlhone at mcilhone@gmail.com.
To register visit cyobball.com.
