Lethbridge Sport Council celebrates Southern Alberta basketball

By Lethbridge Herald on October 17, 2024.

Herald photo by JUSTIN SEWARD Ken Hamilton talks about his books at the Celebration of Southern Alberta Basketball event on Thursday at Visit Lethbridge.com Arena.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge Sport Council hosted a Celebration of Southern Alberta Basketball at the VisitLethbridge.com Arena on Thursday evening.

The celebration gave attendees the opportunity to meet  author Ken Hamilton, who released a nine-book series called Southern Alberta Basketball-A History in Pictures , to explore basketball history exhibits  and recognize local Team Canada  basketball members.

Hamilton’s books tell the story of basketball history at LCI, Catholic Central, Winston Churchill, Raymond, Magrath, Cardston, the two local post-secondary institutions and the Forgotten Schools.

“I hope that  they (attendees) realize how important basketball’s been in the lives of a lot of southern Albertans, family members (and) friends for so long” said Hamilton, who officiated for 26 years in the area and evaluated for another four years.

“It’s got a real rich heritage and a rich history and I just hope that people are interested and they can look through the book.”

Morgan Munroe refereed and played basketball locally.

“As a person who was in education as well, going into schools was always  kind of (an) interesting way to learn more about other schools,” said Munroe.

“I would learn something about basketball (and) I would learn something about the community and the schools.”

“I’ve heard over the years about the gap of recording sport history in this region,” said Susan Eymann, Lethbridge Sport Council executive director.

“So we’re just so extremely pleased and proud of all the work that Ken has done to put together the complete history of basketball. It’s just an incredible feat and it’s not something that  we’ve done well at. It’s in people’s heads, or it’s in people’s bookshelves or in their closets and now it’s all in print and can be used to teach the history to the next generation.”

Former basketball players that were recognized for either being a Basketball Canada national team member or competed in the Olympic Games were Tim Tollestrup, Phil Tollestrup, Ross Bekkering, Perry Mirkovich, Shawna Molcak Kolaczek, Al Williams, Page Crozon and Kacie Bosch.