Every Tuesday night the Philippine Basketball Association of Montreal (PBAM) hosts practices and scrimmages for Filipino youth at the Centre Sportif Côte-des-Neiges gym on Van Horne.
The Filipino community has been uniting through its love for basketball, a tradition that dates back to 1971 when PBAM’s first founders had the idea.
“In the ’70s and ’80s, every Filipino in Montreal was living in Côte-des-Neiges,” said one of the founders, Jake Maguigad.
“And since Filipinos love to play basketball, it was a way to bring us together,” he said.
Originally consisting of mostly adults, the association incorporated a youth division in 1993.
Not only did the association grow, but it started impacting the lives of young Filipinos in the borough.
It still does today, as about 85 per cent of members come from CDN-NDG.
“It’s a way of integrating the kids, to infuse both Filipino-Canadian culture and pure Filipino culture,” said PBAM president Rick Aquino.
“One of the main reasons we all volunteer today is to keep these kids off the streets. If you think about how often we’re in the gym, that’s a lot of kids who, instead of being vagabonds in the streets doing nothing, are here instead,” he said.
According to Aquino, it’s also
a way of showing the kids that they can compete with anyone when it comes to basketball.
He believes that Filipinos
have the same talent as anyone else, and that the more they play through the association, the more confidence they gain to try out for their respective school or city teams.
Basketball is deeply rooted in Filipino culture. “It’s like soccer in Italy, it’s the same thing for us. There’s a tradition of love for this sport in our culture no matter where you go,” said PBAM’s Noel Tejada.
Through the love of basketball, he said, values are also being spread. He mentioned education as one of them.
“These kids will want to go to high school, college and university to compete, meaning they won’t drop out because they know they can’t if they want to play at the next level.”
Currently, the association is selecting and training the teams that will compete in the 37th annual PIBNA tournament in Oshawa that brings together Filipino basketball players from 16 Canadian and American cities.
Last week upwards of 50 teenagers were in the gym, separated by age groups and competing for a spot on one the teams it will be sending to Ontario.
“Our players will represent Montreal’s Filipino community with pride. They’ll wear our colours proudly,” said Aquino.
Including players, coaches and volunteers, PBAM unites nearly 600 people from the Filipino community.
