CANMORE – The court was a playground once again for Masters players balling out at the Peaks Basketball Association 40th anniversary.
With 28 teams participating, the two-day, five-on-five tournaments for men and women aged 35 and over concluded with the championships games at Canmore Collegiate High School on Sunday (April 28).
In the men’s Masters finals, Firewater from Calgary fought off a fourth quarter rally from the Orangemen to win 76-64 and claim the famed Kettle Trophy.
Firewater’s Craig Newman scorched the Orangemen from long range and dropped a game-high 36 points, including six made three pointers.
Newman said it was a special moment to win Peaks’ 40th anniversary tournament.
“I started playing [at Peaks] when I was at U of C years ago and I just love it,” he said. “I try to tell people around the basketball world that I know that we have this recreational tournament in Canmore, there’s no prize money, it’s pride and it’s just a fun night out on a Saturday down at the Drake, so this is special to me.”
Injuries reduced Firewater’s bench to just six men going into the finals, so they had to play a disciplined 48 minutes and play a zone defence to disrupt the Orangemen’s attack.
“We knew they had a couple shooters, so we had to stay out of foul trouble and just know they were going to get shots, but just be in their face and make them know that you’re there,” said Newman. “They had some big bodies, they were a lot bigger than we were, so hopefully pray for some misses and get some rebounds.”
The Orangemen were down 20 points in the second half, but clawed back to cut the lead to single digits late in the fourth.
The game picked up and so did physicality, but Firewater weathered the orange storm with timely buckets and defensive stops.
In the women’s Masters finals, Calgary’s Crüe became back-to-back Peaks champions after edging out Lethbridge’s Horns, 54-48.
Down nine to start the second half, Crüe went on a 12-2 run to start the third quarter.
“We were down and managed to crawl back, so once you get even again it’s sort of a new life, so just fighting to get back to even,” said Crüe’s Patty Cumming.
What was key for the defending champs was critical outside shooting and being able to rotate fresh players in and out of the game for the full 48 minutes. Crüe was working with a nine-player bench, but Horns only had five players who were on the court for every second of the game.
“We had numbers,” said Cumming. “In these tournaments people always lose players to either injury, or other commitments, so we were lucky to have all of our bodies.”
In the final 90 seconds and down four points, the Horns’ final push at the title fell flat after two costly turnovers shaved off precious time from the game clock. Crüe added two more points in the dying moments to secure the championship.
The game’s conclusion finished the first weekend of Peaks’ 40th anniversary. This weekend, the two U35 men’s and women’s divisions are set to compete with the finals taking place on Sunday (May 5) at Canmore Collegiate.
Every year, Peaks has been a success, said organizer Glenn Nelson, and it always welcomes a high calibre of player to the tournament.
“We have ex-college players, university players, some guys have played semi-pro basketball, so it’s a high quality and probably the best basketball in western Canada at this level,” said Nelson.
Through its 40 years, Peaks has grown from an eight-team tournament to a 52-team, two weekend tournament. Nelson said it’s gone by like a flash.
“Who knows how many more years we have in us, but we’ll keep going as long as we can,” he said.
