The inaugural CANUSA Showcase basketball tournament in Fort Fairfield and Presque Isle late last month has set the foundation for future events, according to tournament director Larry Gardner.
Five high school boys teams from northern and eastern Maine and five teams of players from communities in the Canadian Maritimes squared off in the tournament, while three middle school girls teams from each region competed against each other. The games were held at two courts in Fort Fairfield and at the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s court over two days.
The Carleton County Elite team from New Brunswick edged Madawaska 44-40 in the boys championship game. In the middle school girls final, the East Coast Selects team beat Carleton County North One 33-26 in an all-New Brunswick final.
In the round robin stage of the tourneys when the Maine teams played the Canadians, the Maritime teams captured the CANUSA title with 22 wins to northern and eastern Maine’s 12.
“It was fantastic,” said Gardner, a Maine Basketball Hall of Famer. “There was great competition and great camaraderie and sportsmanship. It was well-attended, and everything I heard was positive.”
He said the coaches were happy with the format, and he thinks they would “do it again in a heartbeat.”
There was a separate high school girls tournament of only Maine teams, which was won by the Penobscot Valley girls from Howland who topped Houlton in the final. Fort Fairfield and Wisdom from St. Agatha were the other two teams involved.
The tournament was a spinoff from the CANUSA Games, which ran from 1969 to 1994 and involved youth and adults from Brewer against Canadian rivals from Riverview, New Brunswick, in a variety of athletic competitions.
Like the CANUSA Games format, which had each community hosting it every other year, the expectation is for New Brunswick to host it next year, and Gardner said coaches from the Woodstock, Florenceville and Carleton County area expressed interest in doing so.
In the round robin boys competition, Carleton County Elite went 5-0, including a one-point win over Madawaska, Fredericton went 4-1, Moncton was 3-2 and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, each went 2-3.
On the American side, Madawaska went 4-1, Fort Kent was 3-2, Calais was 2-3 and the Fort Fairfield and Caribou teams were each 0-5.
On the girls middle school side, the East Coast Selects and Carleton North One teams were each 3-0 in round robin play, the Carleton North Two team was 0-3, and all three Maine teams — Caribou, Fort Fairfield and the Tiger Camp All-Stars — went 1-2.
“It was great for the kids to play different teams and play as many games as they did. It was a great experience for them, for sure,” Gardner said. “And there were some really good players.”
The participants received a shirt that read “Basketball knows no borders.” Gardner said there was a “good feeling” at the event, which is what organizers were aiming for during the strained political relations between the two nations.
“We have a good relationship with our neighbors,” he said.
Thomas “Skip” Chappelle, a former University of Maine men’s basketball coach and UMaine and Maine Basketball Hall of Famer, came up with the idea for the event. The basketball court in the Memorial Gym on the UMaine campus is named after him.
The Maine Office of Tourism in the Department of Economic and Community Development approved a grant of $18,750 to finance the event, and the Eastern Maine Development Corp. was the fiscal agent that managed the funds.