Sea Bears courting success Up-to-date playing surface makes Winnipeg more attractive for major hoops events By: Taylor Allen Posted: 6:07 PM CDT Tuesday, May. 7, 2024 Last Modified: 11:29 AM CDT Wednesday, May. 8, 2024 Updates

If this floor could talk.

The hardwood used by the Winnipeg Sea Bears during their inaugural season would have no shortage of stories to tell as it was the main playing surface for most major basketball events in the city for nearly 60 years.

It was just over a decade old when it was initially acquired from what is now Minnesota State University Moorhead for the 1967 Pan Am Games in Winnipeg where the United States, led by future NBA legends Wes Unseld and Jo Jo White, went on to win gold.

Those planks are now semi-retired as the Sea Bears and Basketball Manitoba have teamed up to purchase a portable court that was briefly used for practice purposes at last month’s NCAA Women’s Final Four in Cleveland, Ohio.

It’s currently being sanded and painted by local company Big Sky Enterprises at a city-owned facility in Transcona and will be ready for the May 24 home opener at the Canada Life Centre against last year’s Canadian Elite Basketball League champs, the Scarborough Shooting Stars.

“I think it’s just a great opportunity for the city and a great opportunity for us to upgrade. Basketball is a big part of the community here locally and having a new court is just a great opportunity to continue that legacy on and hopefully, we’ll be able to use it for many years to come so, that’s our goal,” said Sea Bears president Jason Smith.

“I’ll admit, we heard (complaints) from a few teams last year. I mean, perhaps it gave us a bit of an advantage because we knew where the dead spots were after a while.”

The previous surface was used in the early days of the Wesmen Classic, and brought out for countless NBA exhibition games over the years that featured names such as Julius Erving, Dominique Wilkins, Tim Hardaway, Chris Mullin and Christian Laettner.

Arguably it’s most notable pro game was in 1995 when the Toronto Raptors, led by rookie guard Damon Stoudamire, and the Vancouver Grizzlies, with star big man Bryant Reeves, met for the very first time for the Naismith Cup at the Winnipeg Arena.

It was rolled out at a second Pan Am Games in 1999 when a 19-year-old Manu Ginobili suited up for Argentina.

The home floor of the Winnipeg Thunder (1992-94) and Winnipeg Cyclone (1995-2001) was also used in two movies: a 2001 ESPN film called A Season on the Brink about coach Bobby Knight and the 1985-86 Indiana Hoosiers, and Champions in 2022 starring Woody Harrelson.

It even made its way to Brandon in 1996 and 1997 for the Canada Basketball National Championships and the Canada Games.

“Not just to herald the top world athletes, but every basketball player, coach or referee that came out of Manitoba who went on to something bigger and better played on that floor, 100 per cent,” said Basketball Manitoba executive director Adam Wedlake.

“For 99.9 per cent of its life it sat in a warehouse like this not being used. It’s not the pounding of the feet and the sweat and falls and stuff that hurt it, it’s the heat, humidity, time and dust and all that stuff that creeps into it. It’s amazing how long this thing lasted and if we can have half that life or more out of this new one, hopefully because of wear and tear and not dust and rust, that’s a good thing.”

“We still want to use it in some capacity, maybe in more of a recreational kind of setting.”–Adam Wedlake

The old one still has work to do as it will travel to Dauphin for the 2024 Manitoba Games in August.

“We’ll see after Dauphin, we don’t want to toss it. We still want to use it in some capacity, maybe in more of a recreational kind of setting,” said Wedlake.

The upgrade comes with a price tag around $200,000, which is approximately half the cost of buying new. The company that produced the court is Michigan-based Connor Sports who provide portable hardwood flooring to over a dozen NBA and WNBA teams.

Now that Winnipeg is up to date, the Manitoba capital is a more attractive basketball market. Wedlake said they have missed out on events in the past due to their ancient wooden puzzle.

When Canada’s senior men’s team played an exhibition game against Nigeria in downtown Winnipeg in 2019, the court from the Allerus Center in Grand Forks was brought across the border to make it happen. The last few NBA games that came to town were also played on borrowed floors.

Last week, Edmonton’s Rogers Place had a sellout crowd of 16,655 for a WNBA pre-season game between the Los Angeles Sparks and Seattle Storm.

“That’s what’s exciting, the opportunity to attract and bring different national or international events our way,” said Wedlake.

“From NBA exhibition games, to national championships, to FIBA international hosting events, there will definitely be more open doors for us.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

X: @TaylorAllen31