Player 'grateful' for 1-day provincial high school basketball championships despite Hoopla cancellation

Saskatchewan's top high school basketball players had a chance to finish out their 2024 season this weekend, but not in the way that was originally planned.

The Saskatchewan High School Athletic Association hosted a one-day provincial basketball championship Saturday in Moose Jaw.

The event is a compromise organized after the cancellation of Hoopla, the annual provincial championship tournament, due to the ongoing contract impasse between the provincial government and the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation.

The STF announced earlier in the week that teachers would not participate in extracurricular events Thursday and Friday, meaning Hoopla couldn't go on. Students and community members protested across the province this week to save the tournament, but the union and the government did not reach any sort of agreement and continued to blame each other for the cancellation.

The job action is not in effect Saturday, so organizers were able to put together the one-day replacement.

Deana Kempel is the principal of Riverview Collegiate and also one of the organizers of the tournament.

"The school is packed, the the gym is just like got an electric atmosphere and you can see that students and families and teachers and referees, everyone's excited," said Kempel at Riverview Collegiate on Saturday.

"The opportunity to do this for the kids, even if it's on a smaller scale, you know, we pivoted and we went with it because that's what we do and we love to do this."

Kempel said shes heard from the students and says many of them were disappointed by the cancellation of Hoopla, but that a lot of them stood with teachers and were supportive of the compromise.

Kayla Desjarlais, who plays on Norquays girls team, won against Lutheran