Hoopla cancelled, 1-day replacement event announced for Saturday

Players won't be on the court Thursday in Moose Jaw after Hoopla, Saskatchewan's high school basketball championship, was cancelled.

Organizers had said the event would be called off unless job action announced by Saskatchewan Teachers Federation (STF) for Thursday and Friday — a provincewide withdrawal from extracurricular activities — was reversed by a deadline of 3 p.m. CST Wednesday.

That didn't happen, so the cancellation was made official. In place of the tournament, organizers announced a one-day event for Saturday, where every team that qualified for Hoopla would be invited to play a single game.

The issues of classroom size and complexity are the sticking point in negotiations between STF and the province. The STF says they should be included in the teachers' contract, while the provincial government says they should be dealt with at the school division level.

Disappointed basketball players and students confronted STF president Samantha Becotte at the legislature after the budget was revealed Wednesday. 

Alexis Lindgren, a Grade 11 student from Norquay School, said students don't feel supported because the championship was taken away from them. 

"Learning doesn't end at 3:30," she said.

Becotte responded by pointing to the Saturday event, while also acknowledging it isn't what the students had hoped for. 

"In the end, we want to make sure that kids are well supported. And we're talking about the 200,000 kids that are across the province getting all of their needs met in the classroom," Becotte said. "Extracurricular is important, but it is extra to the core business that we have in education."

Lindgren said she and her team spent more than 300 hours preparing for the tournament.

"Now it's just taken away with us because some adults couldn't get together and figure their stuff out," she said. 

"It's hard to understand why they can't sit down and discuss things and find a way around it instead of using us kids as a way to get what they want."

Roger Morgan, chair of the Hoopla organizing committee, said it's disheartening that both parties are unwilling to come back to the table. 

"I wish I could say it was surprising and shocking, but it's the inevitable reality of a negotiation that's at a complete standstill," Morgan said.