Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, it's Steve Vindig at Sport Law. Leave me a message. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Hey, Steve, it's Dina. You aren't going to believe what just came across my desk. We need to chat. Give me a call.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Welcome to the latest episode of Sportopia. We're so excited to share our knowledge and have conversations about healthy human sport. Today we are joined by Sport Law lawyer Will Russell and special guest Ron Young, head of domestic development and 3 on 3 development with Canada Basketball. But before we get to you, Ron, Will, what's coming across your desk this week?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Morning, everybody. There's a little bit of everything coming across my desk this week from a big structural perspective or sector perspective. It's definitely the transition to the new mechanism under the CCS has certainly dominated my inbox over the last three or four weeks. Also, a lot of conversation right now as folks get set up for the summer months about what they're looking to do for alignment around registration and safesport. So never a dull moment. Continuing to be a fascinating and somewhat turbulent time in sport in Canada.
Steve, what's going on your end?
[00:01:39] Speaker A: People who listen to the podcast know that it's tiring sometimes to always deal in the negative space of sport. And what excites all of us is to work on the positive space in sport and where we can see things progressing, moving forward, getting better, creating a better environment, a safer environment.
And just this week I have two or three groups that have reached out about board training. And for me that's a positive sign to see organizations are investing in themselves to make sure that they have time and the skill set and the people to move things forward, as I like to say, from A to B, rather from A to A. So that really excites me that I'm doing some governance training and more organizations are reaching out for it. And of course we have our online directors training called Governance Essentials, which is very easily accessible. Accessible transitioning to you, Ron. Thank you for being here today. Really appreciate you taking your time. Maybe tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, who you are, where you're from, how'd you end up in the sport community and. And what's keeping you busy these days.
[00:02:44] Speaker C: Awesome. Awesome. I feel like this part could take a big chunk of of today's meeting. I'll try to be short and simple.
I'm Ron. I am the head of domestic N3XP development for Canada Basketball.
I've been within, I've been with the sports industry in the sports Industry for roughly about 20.
Initially started my career with the Toronto Raptors working in professional sport and then transitioned over to Canada Basketball for the last 18 years in which I oversee the Domestic Development Department.
Within that I think, you know we, we always look at what makes up the sports system, what makes up the sport itself. So I, I try to categorize it within six different areas pillars that I oversee or at least within this department. What we do there is the youth and sport development piece so which really look at how we get kids into the sport. We look at coach education which I think is pretty self explanatory. We have officials development which again is a new area that we can. Basketball has undertaken to oversee the governance of the officials within the sport itself. There's a system development piece that I think has been very interesting and probably will be very prevalent to this conversation in terms of what Canada Basketball is doing from a leadership standpoint to drive life. The system development to, from membership to DEI to safe sport, fair play, all of those pieces is a big part of what we're doing.
On top of that then there's also competition development and then finally the 3x3 development which is a new area that I oversee as well. So a lot going on and you know it's always like a rotating wheel when you ask, you know what, what I'm doing on a, on a weekly basis it's, it just rotates. I can probably go into very specific each area of the development pie, what we're doing but again I think it's, it goes hand in hand in terms of the amount of work that we are trying to do in terms of leading, guiding and you know, helping the, the growth of the sport.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: One of the reasons Ron, we asked you to be on today's podcast was a theme that we discuss here all the time about working together, breaking silos, amalgamation, trying to minimize bureaucracy and repetition of the same services or the same kind of work. And can you talk about what Canada Basketball is doing with respect to amalgamation aligned governance, breaking down those silos. Those silos and really just working together amongst all your, your, your provincial and territorial members?
[00:05:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's, it's definitely interesting. As I mentioned I, I've been at cannabisball for 18 years so I've seen the, you know, early gecko in the, in the 2008 two the organization was really just overseeing the national teams. They didn't have much involvement in other areas outside of just the high performance piece. So for us now back then when we go to our AGMs the provinces will come in and they would usually ask a question, what do you guys do for us? What does the national governing body do for us? And so that's always been interesting. And so as we kind of evolve as an organization, a lot of it ties to the work that we are doing to help support the growth and development the sport, how we're driving the direction and what are we doing to create various programs to ensure that the provinces, you know, have the ability to now carry out and execute these programs, to align the things that we're trying to do.
So, you know, for us, it's really just making sure that we are, you know, taking the sport in the right direction, rather, that is, again, you know, from every development aspect, from a coach education standpoint, you know, how are we driving the capacity of coaches within Canada, how we ensure the technical leadership within this space to officials? And again, this is relatively new, but, you know, it's something that we have take a keen interest in terms of making sure that we have a strong officiating system so that the sport can, can grow as well.
But again, I think the, the big piece in terms of alignment really has been over the past, I would say, four or five years now.
When it comes to the safe sport piece, I think that's really been an interesting one.
When this first kind of came out, you know, I, I say just pre pandemic, you know, it was really driven by Sport Canada to the nsos. And I felt like, you know, a lot of information was pushed down right to the nsos and like, you have to do this, you got to get this in line and all of that stuff. But there wasn't too much emphasis or at least kind of the lack of the education piece at the provincial level.
And so everybody kind of just scrambled. They kind of wait and see and kind of didn't really know where to go with it. And this is where we started taking a lot of this information and start assimilating IT to the PTSOs to ensure that they have an understanding of what's required. At that time, our messaging was simple. It's just, it's basically, it's going to come, it's going to come at the provincial level and, you know, where it's going to help you guys to, you know, drive the, the, the, the bus in terms of getting to where we need our sport to be and, you know, to be the leader in terms of being the safest sport in all of Canada. And so that kind of amalgamation alignment piece really was taken under that condition.
And you know, over the years we have again, sure that the pieces that we're doing, we're passing the information on. But you know, more excitingly, I think over the past, you know, two, three years, with the help of Will, we started this sport integrity model that really is now trying to align the entire country so that from coast to coast to coast, every PTSOs, all 13 of them will have the same system of safe sport. So that if a participant in basketball enters and and participates, it's consistent across the board. It's not like, you know, you have a different system in BC versus the one in Nova Scotia. We would essentially want to make sure that if you are a participant of basketball in this country, there is a safe board system that is consistent, connected online that we are driving through, you know, both the NSO and PSO effort to make this work.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: What has been the experience in going through this journey over the last, you know, four or five years and certainly then the accelerated piece maybe in the last two years from the sport integrity piece. What has been your experience in linking basketball from coast to coast?
Maybe the good, bad and ugly of all of it.
[00:09:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean it's, you guys probably know this. It's never easy. You know, as, you know, every province, every territory has their own governance structure. They have their own board of directors, they have their own priorities.
And I would probably go as far as to, you know, their own capacity constraints. You know, some provinces are bigger. Great. You know, they can have an extra staff that can kind of oversee this area. Other provinces, other PTSOs are operating one or to staff that they are just trying to, you know, piece things together and so, you know, to slap on this whole new piece of safport, you know, and the initial gecko, it's a lot of, it's just like, what do you mean? I don't, you know, I'm not. Am I really going to read this, you know, 20 page UCC Ms. And to fully understand it to, you know, all of the pieces that comes along with it and you know, what is the independent third party, how is that different than the fair play piece that we're currently doing? So a lot of education pieces was had to be undertaken. We had to do, you know, kind of overall bigger kind of town hall type of meetings with all of our PTSOs to address some of this stuff. And then we also do one on one conversations with each individual PTSO to make sure that they are understanding what their needs are within their own province and territory and jurisdiction. So, you know, it wasn't easy and I don't think it's, it's fully solved at this point. You know, I love to say that we're, we're almost there, but we're not, I think, you know, it's constantly evolving and all of this information is something that we are slowly maturely driving the change. But changes takes time, as in anything. I think for us it's just really guiding the direction of this, holding some of the PTSO's hands to get to the right place.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Ron change is difficult. We all know that.
And again, one of the things we talk about on the podcast, when trust is high, change is a little bit easier than when trust is low. And you mentioned, you know, 18 years ago, Canada basketball may have been looked at just as a national team program. And over the last 18 years, talking about the integration and the safe sport alignment and all the great things that you're doing, how have you been able to build Trust with your PTOs to, to allow you to take on this role? What's happened over the last 18 years?
[00:11:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I think a lot of it is just communication. You know, I, I, I, I always say this. I think, you know, if you take an ownership to make sure that you are providing honest, transparent communication and lots of communication so people know your intentions, that goes a long way. And I think that's something that has been, you know, something that we strive to do in terms of making sure that every PTSO understands the steps that we are taking to guide them. It's not so much that, hey, we're doing this and here you go and we just drop it. It's really just making sure that how are we supporting, not only are we, we creating these pieces, communicating to you in terms of what the intentions are, but how can we help you? How can we support you being there every step of the way so that if you have capacity issue, hey, that's fine, we're going to be there for you to kind of, you know, help you with all of this stuff. That's kind of been the biggest change and I think that earns a lot of trust. The credibility there is built and, and then from there it really helps in terms of these conversations because in, you know, I, I think again in the past it was when I first started, you know, in, in my first five years at Canada Basketball, it was a lot of kind of like asking, pleading, you know, in some cases, yeah, you're begging and they're kind of like, can you do this?
But now it's just, you know, it's so simple because I can message somebody, I can WhatsApp somebody and I can get against it right away. And you know, the, the communication and the relationship has never been stronger between Canada Basketball and spts.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: So Ron, give me tangibles, give me real life lessons like is there a monthly ED call? Is there monthly?
How have you created that over the 18 years? Make it very tangible for our listeners so they can take some of these tools and resources that you've created to create that high level of trust. What did you do?
[00:13:34] Speaker C: Yeah. So right off the bat you talked about the monthly ED calls. That's exactly what we have established. There is a provincial leadership group that gets together along with Canada Basketball staff that half monthly calls. These calls will focus on areas that you know, we would chat through. You know, what are concerns in one province, maybe that it leads into another province. Those conversation has been great in the past. Again I think, you know, drawing from what was, it was two touch points a year. You know, we try to do one touch point at the Ed's meeting once a year and then an AGM, but now we're doing the entire group touch point 12 times a year.
Then on top of that I think there are probably what we call one on one provincial touch points.
And that happens probably quarterly with each PTSOs. And again that's for us to go in and basically do a bit of a conversation check. I don't want to say audit, but it's kind of like hey, where are you with coach education? Where are you with officials involvement? Where are you with SAFE board and edi? So we go into each pts so that one is a little bit more personal in a sense that you are now diving more specifically into that particular problems. What are the pain points, what are their struggles? And you try to start building a bit more of a work plan for them. And so that one's a bit more guided. And then on top of that I think it's just the fact that every PTSO executive directors, staff can just call us, you know, call cannabis basketball office and get an answer right away.
We are, we try to be as attentive as possible and we try to create two way communications, you know, and I think a lot of that, you know, is it's impromptu, it's not planned, but we do probably say on a monthly basis I would talk to at least eight or nine of them on a one on one basis.
And so those are kind of the tangible pieces in which we now have a very fulsome, meaningful kind of conversation. Two way conversation back and forth between the NSOs and the PSOs and looking at that.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: So you have that perspective of sitting at the national level and having this insight into each of the different, you know, the 13 organizations across the country.
What are you seeing as sort of challenges and or you know, opportunities that folks that are delivering the programming in gyms across the country, what are they facing?
[00:16:04] Speaker C: I think there, there's always going to be the people. I think also I'll start on the, the PTSO side of things. I think there's always going to be the capacity piece, right. And I think, you know, from an NSO standpoint, I'm working with 12, 13 PTSOs but at the provincial level they're working with hundreds and hundreds of clubs and associations within their jurisdiction. And so, you know, the capacity for them to develop the pieces or at least implement the pieces that, you know, we have pushed down from a national level that's always going to be a constraint on their part.
So that always will be the first piece. Then I think that the other piece really is just driving around.
How do you mass communicate some of this stuff, you know, for as meaningful as some of this? You know, we cannon basketball has a verification program that you know, is a program where we want organizations to adopt to certain requirements as it pertains to say sport and dei, technical skills, governance, administration.
It's there to protect the system, protect the participants of basketball all. But how do you get that information out?
You know, the importance of it. The safe sport piece, same thing, you know, in terms of why it is needed within the system. Why do we want every coach to have screening done before they step onto the court? Why do we want every coach to have the education done so that they understand the basis of what it means to be a coach?
All that piece is something that we know what it's intended to do, we know why it's there. But when it comes down to the end user piece of the, the community, parents, you know, they aren't fully educated on these pieces. And so when they look for a basketball program, they probably will look for the one that is closest to them or the cheapest to them. But not necessarily, rather they have all of these pieces in place so that they know that their child is in a safe environment. So we struggle right now really just making sure that how do we get that mass communication out? How do you drive that public awareness to all of these important things that we are doing so that parents are more educated in these specific areas?
[00:18:18] Speaker A: I love that Ron. I actually think sometimes sport Has a miss about the education of the end user. And I spent my weekend at an OBL U14 tournament, spent four games up in Richmond Hill.
And one of the things that I feel like is a miss sometimes is what does it mean to be affiliated with a PSO, a PTO or an NSO? And as you've alluded to, SafeSport Coach, Education, Coach certification, coach screening, I do think that's a bit of a miss sometimes. Where to your point, we register with the closest club or maybe the cheapest club or the most economical club.
How do you see that evolving? Is it. I just want, I just think it's almost like a stamp, you know, I want to see that stamp on that program and then I know what I'm getting myself into.
[00:19:07] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think, you know, I use this analogy all the time where, where, you know, you. It's almost like getting vaccinated, Right. I think when, when, when during COVID time, you know, there's, I think in the beginning when, when the government says everybody needs to get vaccinated, it was a small percentage. And you try to get the early adopters, you try to get the, the buy in from the people that believes in all of this and they become champions. And then you start to, you know, working towards the middle of the pack. You know, where we are right now is we know we have our early adopters, we know there are, you know, groups out there that believes in, are doing. And so how do we use them to champion the messaging within the community?
You know, sometimes it's one thing where we talk from a, from a national level, sometimes it's a provincial level. But when you have peer to peer, where a club within a community level can actually speak to why that is important, it makes another club right next door kind of be like, oh yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of, you know, important to have. So can we get that middle group in there so that we can reach that 50, 60% and now we're in the majority, right? Because once you get to that majority, 70, 80%, that's when you're now the outliers, the ones that don't do it are the one that's going to be like get the pressure and all of that. So for us is, I think, you know, how do we make sure that we are continually pushing the effort, driving the education, driving the communication so that we can, you know, leverage the success of all the stuff that we're trying to do intentionally to make sure that this system is, you know, moving in the right direction.
So you mentioned the stamp. Yeah, I think, you know, the verification is, that is to basically let the end user know that there is a stamp of approval from the NSO and pso that this is a program and organization in good standing. They are doing the right thing in terms of education for coaches. They're doing the right thing in terms of Safort. But at this point the parent don't know what the stamp means. Right. And so for us it's still really making sure that, that we are, you know, trying to push for the messaging piece and you try to guide it in a way that we are getting the high percentage until such a point that, you know, we can then work with the outliers to kind of get them in under the umbrella of the, of the sports system.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Yeah, interesting you mentioned that. I, you know, one of my Christmas books that I wrapped up, you know, still in the first two months of the year. So I think it still counts as a Christmas read. But was, was the latest Gladwell book about revenge of the Tipping Point and talking about that magic third and, and looking at how we have that this, you know, group adoption where something becomes, you know, it's, it begins as sort of this initiative and then it becomes the norm. Backup cameras were what for two years they were an add on and then all of a sudden I don't think you could buy a car without a backup camera. So I think it really is interesting and it's the challenge of especially building out the preventative pieces where if they're doing well, good governance means you don't really know anything about the governance other than the lights are on, the facilities are rented, the refs show up. But you really notice that you have the lack of good governance, the lack of the operational pieces. You do notice when the facilities are double booked or there's no refs for those games. So it'll be interesting to see as we push to get that into the grassroots.
And on that, when we're looking at grassroots, how has it shifted in the last couple of years? And I'll give you a heads up, I'll be talking about some of the developments on the professional side that we're seeing this year and next year year. But, but on the grassroots, have you seen a change, you know, in the country since you joined in 2008, 2009?
[00:22:49] Speaker C: I mean the, the sport is growing exponentially.
You know, I, I think from the, I mean many different factors. Obviously you have the Raptors Vince Carter effect in the early deco of the 2000. Then when you. The Raptors win the championship, that is a big spotlight on the sport itself.
Then you start seeing the national team program where the most NBA athletes that second most besides usa, but the most NBA athletes that are from one country, Canadian, being the second highest number of Canadian athletes in the NBA. You know, all of that takes into account, especially when we. I think there was a stat that I kind of recently looked at was the fact that from the new immigrants that are coming into Canada, basketball has always been the number one sport. So you now have an influx of immigration coming into Canada on an annual basis where their number one sport is basketball.
That really drives the system in terms of the growth of the sport itself. So I think that, you know, ultimately is, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a great thing for basketball.
But as in anything once, as soon as you have, you know, the numbers, as soon as you have, you know, a bigger kind of base, now there are more variations in terms of how programs are operated.
You know, whereas in the past it's just, you know, everybody kind of like, yeah, you kind of just, you know, organize your program. You go under your provincial body and then you operate. There are more wokes, rogue leagues and associations out there doing their own thing. And, you know, like, quite honestly, like, if you actually want to start a.
A basketball program tomorrow in your own community, nobody stops you. Right? And there is an piece where he says you have to sign up to be a member under your provincial body. You have to do xyz. The requirements to do. There's none of that. You basically, if you can find a gym to make it work, then, you know, you can do that. So, you know, that becomes a bit more challenging from a governance standpoint of the NSOs and PSOs to make sure that, okay, the sport is getting bigger, it's getting more out there, but we still need to round everybody back in so that it's not the wild, wild west, right? And so for us is making sure that we are doing our part, driving, you know, the messaging to make sure that, you know, the competition structure, the coach structure, the official structure, everything follows in line in terms of what we're trying to do to unite the system into the way that we're going.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: I have one complaint, Ron. I. I do believe every basketball team should have to put their city or town name in their name, show up, and we're playing the Ramblers. I'm like, I don't know where they're from. And Then we're playing collective elite. Where are they from?
[00:25:39] Speaker C: That.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: That's my one complaint.
[00:25:41] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, that, that's, that's a crazy part because now, like, for example, like, we are seeing being a parent of a U13 team because their child got cut from the team, you know, a week later he's like, you know, this is, this is bogus. I'm going to start my own program and where my child is going to be the star. And you know, so now you have two programs from the same township, from the same community where they're competing for the same kids and all of that stuff. So, yeah, it's, you know, it, it's, it's, it's where this system has kind of gone to where people can just do whatever they want without requirements, without governance, without structure.
So those are all pieces that again, it's something that we are seeing as a alarming piece. I mean, look, basketball is basketball. You get more kids playing the sport. That's great, but we still want them to do it in the right environment. We still want them to, you know, be involved in a, in a system where it's done the right way, it's safe, it's, you know, the coaches are, know exactly what they're doing. All those pieces need to be in place.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's something we're seeing in many sports across the countries is, you know, these more private academies that are falling outside of the, you know, the, the NSO PTSO structure and, and the challenges associated with that. And it is a big question about what it means to be associated or aligned with the national and provincial or territorial governing body. So it's, it's a big question and I think it'll be something that we continue to see as sports grow up. Particularly those are the very clear professional pathways.
I don't think the professional pathways were open to Steve and I when we were playing basketball many, many, many, many years ago on that professional, like maybe to shift from the grassroots to looking at what we, you know, projecting out for next year, you know, even the games coming up in la la, you know, we have sga, who's the leading candidate right now. I don't want to jinx anything, so I won't say too much, but, you know, he is leading Canada in the mvp we have is the tempo, who.
[00:27:48] Speaker C: We have for the, you know, franchise.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: Wnba, like, what do you see is next for basketball in Canada? Like, how do you, where do, what direction do you see we go? Us going as a country and it's.
[00:28:00] Speaker C: It'S only going up. It's only going up. I mean our both program on the men's and women's five on five side are you know, you know, tops in the world. I think at the highest, both were ranked fourth in the world.
You know, that's, that's, that's astonishing. I think when you start looking at where the sport has gone to at the highest level and again when you can field our men's team with 12 NBA athletes, you know, when our, our, our women's team has I believe three or four WNBA athletes and then you know, all professional athletes that play at the highest level in Europe, you know the, that really shows that we have great talent pipeline and we continuously from the next generation standpoint have more and more Canadian high level basketball players that are entering into our athlete pool. And so you know, the sport itself, it's going to, I think at the, at the, at the podium level will continue to, will see great success.
You know, we think, you know, when we get to LA, we like to have all four teams and when I say four, we have the men's and women's problem five where there's also now the 3x3 program that is going to be a big part of it. Our women's program were just missed out. They finished fourth in, in Paris, you know, but I think, you know, we'd like to get all four teams in there and all 14 podium and when that happens that again the spotlight on the sport itself is going to drive further growth and success of the program. I think, you know, we've always kind of looked at the numbers. We know soccer and basketball are the two highest growing sport at the youth level.
I don't know, I think I, you know, the last numbers I saw was probably pre pandemic and I, you know, I, I, I want to say basketball was kind of just right there with soccer. I don't know if we've surpassed them yet, you know, but you know, for us we are going neck and neck with soccer in terms of the most youth playing this sport. I think that's always going to be a big piece for terms of getting more kids involved, build a bigger base and then the base is going to transpire into greater, higher level athletes progressing to the next level and then for us to continue to podium at the highest level.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Ron, you mentioned you've been at Canada Basketball 18 years. And just as we wrap up today's session, being as young as you are and another 18 years of Canada basketball under your belt, what will Successfully success look like. How would you define you're retiring? I'm walking off into the sunset. I'm moving to the Bahamas.
What, what would success look like for you?
[00:30:36] Speaker C: I, I wish I could retire soon.
I think. I obviously I think the easy one, that one that you can easily measure is the podium success. Right. So especially with me now a bit more involved on the high performance side with 3x3 specifically the podium success will always drive the, you know, ignite the nation that by in and of itself with you know, our men's team, our women's team, our 3x3 teams that are participating at the, you know, LA Olympics coming up and then Brisbane in 32. Success in those teams will help drive the, the growth of the sport. I think that's a, that's a given.
But as in the work that I have been heavily involved with, as in the work that really kind of, you know makes up what domestic development is. Yeah, I think you know, the forward line alignment of having everything under one umbrella is success. When we talk about, you know, a one safe sports System across all 13 provinces and territories that you know, the sport integrity model in terms of hey, we have a national code of conduct that every BTSOs are using the same code of conduct. We have, you know, fair play regulation sanctions. We have a reporting mechanism that is considered assistant so that anywhere, you know, across the country, if there is a salesport, you know, concern complaint, there is a mechanism people know to go to and they don't have to dig up this information, you know, and not know where to find it on HPTS website. That's a big one. We want every coach to be trained and certified.
We want every officials to have their education NOCP pieces so that there, you know, there is a standard in terms of how they move up their, their officials pathway. We want competition structure to be all under the nsos and psos, you know because we, we want to be able to govern these pieces right. And we want to be making sure that it aligns all the way through rather your house seek to rep to, you know, provincial and national championships. It all fully aligns into an overall system that falls under one umbrella. And I think you know to, to, to me, to us at Canada basketball that's the ideal that you know, we can now have a system where we are proud of that we can say it's the safest, that there are requirements that is there to be met and that every, you know, coach, officials, administrators understands the importance of being within a system so that we can all support each other and drive the growth of the sport itself.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: I love it, Ron. I love, love it. Lots to do, lots to continue to move forward. Lots of growth. Will any, any final comments?
[00:33:19] Speaker B: No, I don't think I can say it any better than what, what Ron put out there. It'll, it certainly will be an interesting path that as we look ahead to, you know, continuing the Sport Integrity Project and, and getting folks just playing the sport that they love. I mean, that's what it mean at the end of the day, that's what we're, we're trying to do is make sure they are playing their sport that they want because that's, that's really why we here. That's really why we here.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Well, Ron, let me know when there's an over 50 national championship. I'm still in. I'm in.
[00:33:50] Speaker C: That, that might actually be sooner than you think. We're kind of thinking of putting a Masters national tournament at some point in the coming years.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: I still play a couple times a week and I play at a local facility here in Toronto and Christine Nurse actually trains there quite often, but she routinely refuses to play with us, claiming we'll hurt her. So I completely understand that argument. I want to congratulate you, Ron and Canada Basketball on the great success that it's having growing the game and creating a safe environment. Really appreciate your time today.
In the episode notes below, you'll find some sport law blogs where you can find more information related to our conversation today with Rob. Ron, thank you very much to our listeners. We are grateful to share our vision of Sportopia with you and to elevate sport as always to have your say in Sportopia. Email us at helloportlaw CA to let us know what you want to hear about next.
Stay tuned for our next episode. Be well. Thank you, Will. Thank you, Ron.
[00:34:52] Speaker C: Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Will.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: Thank you, Sa.
