By Adam Donnelly

HIGH SCHOOL HOOPS

2023 edition of the Fulton Cup shaping to be ‘one of the more memorable ones’

Dec 19, 2023 | 6:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — Despite being old enough to have played in the Fulton Cup tournament in its early days, Sean Garvey never got that opportunity when he was a standout for Westsyde Secondary School.

“I was always kind of a little envious — we never got to get in there and play in front of the city,” Garvey recalls. “It’s a great tradition. What are we, 25 years into this? It’s good, and hopefully we can keep it going stronger and stronger every year.”

The three-day tournament features senior and junior divisions for both boys and girls and takes place at the Tournament Capital Centre in December. The tournament is a good chance for all the schools to get in some game action early in the season.

“This is the time when the rivalries can really speak for themselves and everyone gets in the gym and hopefully this prepares them for provincials, right?” Garvey says. “Hopefully we can send a good contingent of teams down at all the levels and they’re not going to be afraid of the arena or the big moments and the big crowd.”

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With all the teams in the city competing in different classifications, they don’t often get to play one another. The Fulton Cup has become that chance for these athletes, many of whom play club basketball together, to do a little trash-talking.

“It’s such a big deal,” Westsyde Secondary’s Cason Scott says. “Playing the guys that I play club with and am buddies with just adds a little more competitiveness that goes on in the competition.”

“It’s really fun because you know how they can play, so you know how hard you can go against them,” Julia Blackford, a Grade 12 athlete from Valleyview explains. “You just want to give it your all because you know them outside of school, too.”

For athletes from the smaller schools, the Fulton Cup is a chance to test your mettle against the big schools that compete at the higher levels in BC School Sports.

“I would love to upset SKSS or Sa-Hali,” Morgan Eichenberger from St. Ann’s says. “We’ll try to do what we can. Maybe beat Westsyde and try to get NorKam, as we kind of did last year.”

For those athletes from the bigger schools, they know they’ll have to dig in and work hard if they hope to hoist that trophy at the end of the week.

“Winning the Fulton Cup, that’s a really big thing for any team. Obviously, we love the competition, it’s a super competitive thing. All the teams are all out to get each other, they’re all trash-talking each other,” Keenan Brulotte, SKSS big man, explains. “The competitiveness just leads to a great environment, everyone loves it.”

As for favourites to win the Fultons this year, Garvey says it could go any number of ways.

“This tournament is shaping up to be one of the more memorable ones, one of the better ones on paper, going into it,” Garvey suggests. “Every [school] is producing really good teams. The results over the last few years — and I don’t expect it to be any different this year — they’re always up in the air. There’s a lot of good kids in the city, a lot of good teams.”

Fulton Cup basketball runs at the TCC Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.