Steinbach's growing Filipino diaspora created their own basketball league, then opened it to all
CBC
Alex Thiessen was used to watching Steinbach's only basketball league from the sidelines.
It was the next best thing to actually playing in the competitive recreational league with many of his buddies. He was good enough to play, he knew, but could never quite crack a roster.
Alex asked "countless times," he said, smiling at the memory, but "I couldn't convince anybody."
He knew his requests were futile. He wasn't eligible because this was a basketball league for Filipinos, by Filipinos.
Alex admired what the league represented: it gave a community to the Filipino diaspora that fuelled much of Steinbach's growth (1,500 people in a city of nearly 18,000 residents, according to Statistics Canada) and a welcome chance to play a sport they loved. The league had as many as 160 players before the pandemic.
But off the court, Abram Razon and the executive of the South EastMan Filipino Association basketball league were planning to open up their games to non-Filipinos such as Alex.
"The Filipinos, ever since we moved here, we've been welcomed with open arms by people who are from here locally, and we want to give back. We don't want to be exclusive; we want to be inclusive," Razon said.
"It was just a matter of time before we open it up to everybody else, but we knew this is what we wanted."
Alex signed up as soon as the rebranded Prairie Basketball League accepted Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike for the first time this winter.
He had previously been making regular trips into Winnipeg to play in a competitive league. The local Filipino basketball community changed that.
"There's almost no chance that there would be men's league at all [in Steinbach] if it wasn't for them."
Alex's wife, July Thiessen, attended many of the league's games as a fan. She's happy she can cheer for her husband, too.
"As a Filipino, I always wanted to see other cultures … play basketball and in the southeast they're always big on basketball as well," July said.
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