Provincial Supervisor Report

The following are some of the highlights of last month’s CABO meeting in Vancouver:

· Fred Nykamp has recently been hired as the new Executive Director of Canada Basketball. Based on Canada Basketball’s presentation, it appears that we will be enjoying a positive working relationship and will be working together in the development of a plan to better define our partnership as well as the development and promotion of basketball officiating.

· Although the CABO camp in Montreal was cancelled due to lack of participants, the Executive continues to be committed to providing a summer CABO camp to officials across the country. The Executive will revisit the objectives of the camp and will announce the outcome in the near future. CABO will continue to offer camp scholarships.

· CABO Executive Member, Paul Deshaies (Quebec), has been selected to serve on the FIBA Technical Committee for FIBA certification.

· Congratulations to Mike Homsy and Nancy Ethier who represented Canada at the Olympics (Greece) as neutral officials.

· Vice-President, Don Cline, successfully completed 2 of the 3 contracts he was negotiating this summer. Both the CCAA and Canada Basketball agreements have been finalized and the third agreement with CIS requires additional negotiations especially in the area of game fees and selection process for CIS tournaments.

· Much discussion took place concerning the inconsistencies in the application of national exams across the country. Most provinces recommend that any official who is to represent their province at national tournaments should write a closed book national exam.

· National assignments for the Canada Games have not yet been finalized. Nova Scotia expects to receive one assignment for both the men’s and women’s competition.

· Congratulations to Doug Stockman on receiving the “Wink Willox Award” and to Ron Foxcroft on receiving the “Ted Early Award”.

· The official shirt for national championships will be the black and white striped shirt.

· The AUS play-off agreement is currently being negotiated between John Walsh of Newfoundland and Jack Drover of Mount Allison University. Proposals will be presented at the AGM on Sunday, October 3, 2004.

· Canada Basketball is looking to promote more national club championships which translate in more national assignments.

· The summary of officiating allocations by province reflected that Nova Scotia received 12 national assignments in 2004. However, due to the location of some of the national tournaments, we will not be as fortunate in the next few years.

· National assignments to the CIS men’s and women’s now follow a new model which is based on the number of schools per conference. Nova Scotia will now receive one assignment to both CIS men’s and women’s on a yearly basis. The two wild cards will be chosen by CABO.

· CABO recognizes Post-Play as being a valuable communication vehicle and apologizes for the delay in issuing publications. CABO is currently searching for an Editor for the publication.

Once again, Nova Scotia officials who have aspirations to move up the ranks within the organization took advantage of the opportunity to attend a CABO Basketball Camp. They received invaluable feedback from some of the top officials and clinicians in the country. The camp was a very rewarding and positive experience for all of our attending officials.

Three contracts (ACAA, NSSAF and Basketball Nova Scotia) received tentative approval at the beginning of the 2003/04 basketball season. We operated with the fee structure that was in place for the first year of the agreement (last year's rates). Of course, our clients were happy with the rates since they were not increased. Nevertheless, each of these organizations now face a small increase in rates for the upcoming basketball season. Our negotiations committee is presently in the final stages of signing-off these agreements and does not anticipate any delays. Contracts with the AUS for both league and play-offs are presently being negotiated and will require a united front in order to ensure we do not rescind previously negotiated benefits.

I had an opportunity to attend the summer nationals and I was extremely pleased with the professionalism of the national evaluators and with the overall evaluation process. Reg Jewkes did an outstanding job in his role and has been recognized by CABO for a job well done. Participating officials must ensure evaluation forms are completed.

Midget Men

Midget Women

Dave McGratton

Chris Ross

Neil Deveau

Kevin Newcombe

A/E -Reg Jewkes

Brian States

Sam McNeish

Mary Alice Butts

Cheryl Crabbe

Congratulations to Roger Caulfield on being selected to work the FIBA U21 Men’s COPABA World qualifying tournament hosted in Halifax at the end of July. Roger was extremely proud to be able to work a FIBA event here in Nova Scotia during this, his final year, as a FIBA official. He was assigned three games and worked on the final day. A small gathering was hosted in Roger’s honor where a number of local officials, coaches, family and friends joined together to celebrate and commemorate his contribution to international basketball. Roger has worked over 135 international games throughout his officiating career.

We are pleased to announce that Jon Hunt has been identified as a candidate to attend a FIBA certification camp in Winnipeg (October 2004).

Basketball is quickly becoming a full-time job and thus significantly impacts on people’s personal lives. I can only thank each and every one of you for the tremendous effort and time you devote to improving your fellow officials’ basketball environment and for your contribution to the development of the game within your own region/communities.