A new report from the Ottawa Sport Council is highlighting the lack of indoor basketball infrastructure with a call for new courts to encourage greater participation in the low-cost sport.
The council, which studies and supports community sports development, released the 76-page report in January ahead of a virtual town hall discussion on the issue.
‘’We’re leaving kids behind. That’s what’s frustrating for all of us,’’ said former Rideau-Vanier councillor Mathieu Fleury, who chairs the OSC board and is a board member of the Ottawa Basketball Network.
Josh Porter, a competitive under-10 coach with the Kanata Youth Basketball Association, said he sees this problem at his own team’s practices when his players’ siblings attend.
‘’They’re just hoping for a whistle to jump on the court, take three shots and quickly get off before we start the play again,’’ he said. ‘’These kids are dying to play a little bit more.’’
Ottawa is one of many communities that relies primarily on outdoor courts and schools to provide space for basketball, the report says.
Fleury said school boards are no longer able to fulfill Ottawa’s basketball needs. This is happening, he says, as those needs are growing as people of many, varied backgrounds are interested in basketball.
‘’It’s the type of Canada we speak about,’’ said Fleury.
The report says basketball ‘’ranks among the top three sports for Canadian youth participation, driven by affordability, urban accessibility, and cultural relevance.’’
Porter said another reason basketball is such a strong community builder is the variety of roles players can have on a team.
‘’You can have different bodies be very successful,’’ he said.
He said his team is a mix of taller, stronger players and smaller, faster players. He said they can develop the other facets of their game as they get older and move up the ranks in the KYBA.
Shamir Kanji, a board member at the OSC and at the OBN, coaches the association’s under-14 triple-A team.
The team travels to Toronto each month to see different and stronger competition. He said the trips take a toll on parents and players.
‘’Every time we go down, we are kicking ourselves — our youth, our parents, our cars, our time — and we’re spending it in other communities, which is wonderful for them,’’ he said. ‘’It would be really nice to have a facility that welcomes people to Ottawa and shows everybody the richness of our basketball community, and our community at large.’’
I think now is the time for this report to hit their desk and ask: What is the City of Ottawa prepared to do to support basketball?
— Shamir Kanji, Ottawa Sport Council and Ottawa Basketball Network
This is a central point in the OSC’s report, as it states that ‘’it is clear that not all courts are created equal, and outdoor facilities are insufficient for year-round play and the ability to host high-level events.’’
Kanji said whenever major tournaments do happen, local basketball organizations have to shut down their programming for entire weekends because too many gyms are being used for the special event.
In its report, the OSC made multiple recommendations to the city, including increasing access to school gyms and investing into a new multi-court facility inspired by structures like the Toronto Pan AM Sports Centre.
The Pan AM Centre — a partnership between the City of Toronto and University of Toronto Scarborough — is a multi-sport complex which has four basketball gyms built to international standards. It also holds Olympic-sized pools, diving boards, a sprint track and many other fitness-related facilities.
Kanji and Fleury said many of Ottawa’s indoor basketball facilities are decades old. They also said the city isn’t building sports complexes at the same rate as cities in other provinces.
But Fleury said the city is starting to take notice of the potential benefits of hosting large basketball events and how many young people are on basketball waitlists.
The Ontario Ministry of Sport plans to invest about $200 million through the Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund in 2025-26. That’s almost twice as much as in 2024-25.
Kanji said it’s now about the city acting. ‘’I think now is the time for this report to hit their desk and ask: What is the City of Ottawa prepared to do to support basketball?’’ he said.
