The Toronto Raptors have played annual exhibition games in Montreal since 2012 as part of their Canada-wide tour, and since then basketball fans packed the Bell Centre every year, but this season no NBA games will be played.
The apparent snub has left members of the historic Dawson College Blues basketball community, known for producing some of Quebec’s most talented players like the NBA’s Joel Anthony, wondering what happened.
Dawson College Athletic coordinator Gavin Sealy attended the exhibition games at the Bell Centre the first two years of the tour. He wondered why Montreal was snubbed when the sport has grown in popularity.
“The basketball community is growing and as the basketball community grows everybody looks forward to seeing an NBA team come to town,” Sealy said.
“For the NBA to come to Montreal, it’s a big thing for us, we looked forward to seeing the super stars. The community kids get to see these major role models. When they just cut it abruptly like that it kind of hurts.”
Men’s Division 1 head coach Wayne Yearwood cannot understand the decision and wants answers.
“They need to give us some reasons why they’re not coming here, they need to tell us why,” Yearwood said.
“So at least we can have an understanding of what’s keeping them away.”
So far, answers have remained elusive.
The exhibition game was hosted by Evenko, a major player in events promotion in Quebec.
“I’m being told that the Raptors are only hitting Western Canada this year, which would explain why they are not coming to Montreal,” said Philip Vanden Brande, a media relations officer at Evenko.
Yearwood wonders what it will take to keep the professional basketball going in Montreal.
“By taking away an NBA game, one game from us, it puts us back into square one again,” Yearwood said.
“We’re here trying to show that we’re a basketball province, a basketball community and it’s being taken away from us. So where do we go now? How do we continue to show that this province is a basketball hot bed in this country?”
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