Most sports camps in Yellowknife offer up the standard on-surface and in-class teaching to everyone who registers to take part.
Basketball NWT, though, took it up a notch and did more than just your standard camp fare.
The Empower Camp saw close to 90 youth from around the territory converge on Weledeh Gymnasium for a weekend filled with skills, drills and education on everything that matters to a young athlete. In addition to the on-court instruction, the athletes received instruction in mental health, nutrition, fitness and even yoga.
Cole Marshall, Basketball NWT's technical director, said there were some learning curves but the overall feeling is that it was successful.
“They got some mental health training, they got to hear from a sports psychologist, they got to hear from a nutritionist,” he said. “We delivered what we had promised to the kids and it's always good when you can deliver what you said you would.”
Graeme Ryder led the on-court business and he's a familiar face to most of the basketball community in Yellowknife. Ryder is a former student at Sir John Franklin High School who's now the assistant coach of the women's program at MacEwan University in Edmonton.
Ryder was lacking a voice by the time the final session rolled around on Sunday and he said that meant it went as well as it could have in terms of the drills.
“We had so many kids come in from the communities and I hope they had fun like I did,” he said. “I'm hoping they can learn something from me and I just hope they have a lot of fun with it. They're never going to learn anything if they don't have that passion for the game and there was a lot of passion this weekend.”
Selling the camp to Ryder wasn't a problem, either.
“Cole came to me with the idea and he said it was going to be big,” said Ryder. “He had big dreams with it and as soon as he said it, I tried to make sure I had an open weekend to come up so I was glad to be a part of it.”
After the on-court sessions were done with, the young players got the chance to learn from professionals in their various fields about the personal side of being an athlete. Matt Bain of Grande Prairie, Alta., led the sports psychology talks while nutritionist Lorie Crawford spoke about the importance of eating right.
On the fitness side, Scott Thomson, the co-owner of Just Fitness, and Devin Madsen from the Racquet Club talked about the fitness end of things.
Chase Clark was one of the young players from Yellowknife who took part in the weekend's festivities and said the one thing he liked the most was doing yoga.
“It relaxes my body and helps take the pressure off,” he said. “Takes my mind off everything that's going on.”
Clark also appreciated the fact that Ryder came back home to help with the camp.
“He's a really good teacher,” he said. “He teaches us slowly and helps us learn and supported us all the way.”
This wasn't a cheap venture by any stretch and Marshall said the help provided by the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs and the city was much appreciated to help keep costs as low as possible.
“They got a jersey, they got accommodations, they got lunch every day,” he said. “Weledeh was good to let us have the gym for almost nothing.”
Marshall hopes this will be the first of many camps of this nature.
“We had our bumps along the way and as a board, we'll talk about what worked and what didn't work,” he said. “From there, we'll see how we can make this better for future years but to have this amount of kids and the amount of involvement from funding sources who hare our passion of educating these kids on and off the court is inspiring.”