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By Derek Craddock

BEST OF THE BEST

P.A. Press wins first-ever Rattlers club tournament

Apr 3, 2023 | 6:00 PM

What started as a hobby, grew into a passion, then a team, and now a brotherhood that has won a provincial tournament.

The P.A. Press, a U13 basketball club, consisting of players from St. Anne School, the P.A. Thunder, and the Lakers took part in the All Sask. Classic. It was the first-ever club tournament organized by the Saskatchewan Rattlers.

Nathan Fiddler, a local dad helped organize and coach the team. He said his son developed a passion for basketball after seeing the Toronto Raptors win the NBA title in 2019.

“He started playing ball more and then the next year he got his friends joining the school team,” he said.

Fiddler eventually got wind of the All Sask. Classic after his wife heard about it. Before long, more kids came together to play, and Fiddler registered for the tournament.

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“We only had four practices, two weeks to prep for it,” he said.

The thought of being in the tournament was an exciting one for Fiddler and his son who attended many Rattlers games and even took part in a Rattlers camp one year.

Now, there sat an opportunity to show the rest of the province what they were made of.

Fiddler knew it wouldn’t be a cakewalk as they were up against some pretty high-level basketball programs including Greenwave United basketball.

“It’s a big academy that you have to pay monthly fees to play for them,” said Fiddler adding another big program they were up against was SaskHoops in Saskatoon.

The U13 club went 2-1 in the round-robin with their only loss against Greenwave. After knocking out Greenwave in the semifinals, the team was ready for a rematch with SaskHoops for the Gold Medal.

The feeling of winning it all was amazing.

“The way they embraced each other. You could just see it and not only as a coach but as a parent, it was unreal to see.”

Fiddler admitted he’s not a coach and doesn’t have much in the way of basketball experience having just played junior basketball, but admitted he was more of a benchwarmer.

“But with the relationship I built with my boy over this basketball thing, I kind of indulged more.”

He said he could not have organized and coached this basketball team without the help of people like Christian Hudon with the Lakers.

“I learned lots from helping him out,” said Fiddler. “Even though we weren’t the Lakers, he was 100 per cent what was pushing this team from far back because these boys learned lots from him. I just watched him and sponged off him these past two, three years.”

He also gave credit to Shawn Grey another parent who helped with the assistant coaching and Mark Canton from St. John Community School who allowed the team to practice in the school gym.

Of all the things Fiddler will take away from this experience, none will match the camaraderie the boys have now being a part of this club.

“They built a bond over these past three weeks that I’ve never seen,” said Fiddler. “I’ve never seen a group of boys just band together and go to war for each other like this.”

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derek.craddock@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @princealbertnow