Teams from across North America converge on the Richmond Olympic this weekend for the inaugural Battle of the Badges Canada Basketball Tournament.
The three-day event features police, fire corrections and military men’s teams competing in open and master divisions. The list of entries is impressive with entries from New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Wisconsin, Indiana, Trinidad and Tobago, along with Vancouver area.
The New York area alone has five teams competing this weekend including the NYPD.
Action gets underway on Friday afternoon and continues through to the Open Division championship game at 2 p.m. on Sunday. The Master’s Final tips-off at 1 p.m.
Proceeds of the event goes to the Dunc Anderson Scholarship Foundation— named after the longtime B.C. high school basketball coach who taught the game at five of seven secondary school schools in Delta over a 37-year span.
Among his highlights was guiding the Delta Pacers to the provincial tournament in 1993. It was the Ladner school’s first appearance in 15 years and the team was led by Navi Sekhon — now a Burnaby firefighter who will be playing in the Masters Division of this weekend’s tourney.
Anderson’s son John is among the Battle of the Badges organizers and is also in action this weekend.
