The luck of the draw sent 15 members of a Scarborough Basketball Association (SBA) Saturday house league program to last Sunday’s Raptors game.
The seventh and final game of the first round playoff series (which the Raptors ended up losing 104-103 to the Brooklyn Nets), it was no doubt the hottest sports ticket in Toronto this season.
Not only did the Air Canada Centre obviously sell out, the adjacent ‘Jurassic Park’, otherwise known as Maple Leaf Square, was filled to capacity with 10,000 fans two hours prior to tip off to the May 5 afternoon game.
No problem, though, for these Scarborough basketball players who were whisked to the stadium in a yellow school bus – and even had an interview with TSN – before heading into the packed building.
The tickets were offered up to the SBA by Canadian Tire’s youth sports charity Jumpstart which is already involved in sponsoring membership in the league.
"It was really thrilling, it was awesome for the kids," said an appreciative Kareem Granger, head convenor of the house league program.
The SBA and Jumpstart decided a good way to dish out the tickets was a draw – but with a twist. The draw was open to all players in the Saturday house league program between the ages of 9 and 14. But they were told that the prize was watching Sunday’s big game on a big screen, preceded by a pick-up game. The parents of the winning draw members were obviously let in on the ruse.
Sunday’s pick-up game came about as promised, held at McGregor Park Community Centre.
"Being kids and being young basketball players they were excited just to start a little pick-up game on the basketball court," he said.
The only thing out of the ordinary, he said, was all the assembled media and guests.
"It was a little weird because there was, like, camera guys on the court as they were playing."
And that’s when the kids were told the truth: the only big screen they would be looking at that afternoon was actually inside the Air Canada Centre.
"Getting tickets to Game 7 is one thing, the excitement of hanging out with each other is another thing. But then the whole red carpet treatment that we got when we got down there was a total other thing – the T.V. time. A lot of them are still getting text messages and hearing from their friends who saw them because we did the interview ... I guess that was live, right before the game," said Granger.
In the end, there was only one way it could have turned out better (referring, of course, to a Raptors win).
"That would have made it just too good to be true," said Granger.