Page 40 - BusinessWest June 12, 2023

Tipping Off a Tradition
After Delays, Hooplandia Finally Gets a Chance to Shine
“Getting some momentum here
is very important. This first year and the second year are going to be very important
to position this tournament
as a premier tournament for the future.”
It’s been a long road from Hooplandia’s conception to its tipoff on June 23. Even longer than the road — that
would be Interstate 90 — from Spring- field to Spokane, Wash., the home of Hoopfest, a 3-on-3 basketball tournament established 33 years ago that now draws 7,000 teams per year.
When he first visited Spokane, Gene Cassidy saw an enormous highway sign calling that city ‘Hooptown USA.’ And he had two initial thoughts, the first being that, if anyone should call themselves Hooptown, it’s Springfield, not Spokane. The second thought was that this type of event could be huge in the birthplace of basketball.
At the sight of the Hooptown USA sign, “I was shaking my head, asking, ‘how in the world does this region, this city, get that moniker?’” recalled Cassidy, president and CEO of the Eastern States Exposition. “They’re on the right street, but that’s the wrong end of the country, right?”
So he brought that idea back to the right end of I-90. And by 2019, Cassidy and John Doleva, president and CEO of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, were busy plan- ning to unveil Hooplandia the following June.
And then the pandemic shut the whole world down. Tour- ism and events were shuttered and canceled.
Or, in the case of Hooplandia, postponed. It was clear right away there would be no such event in 2020, but as the pandemic persisted and subsequent surges continued to hit the nation and the region, the tourna- ment was scrapped for 2021 as well. And while the situation improved somewhat that year, there were too many uncertainties and not enough time to put a tournament in place for 2022.
Which brings us to 2023, and the inaugu- ral Hooplandia event finally set to descend on the region for three days on June 23-25. Most games will be played at the Big E fair- grounds, while championship matches in numerous divisions — which include chil-
dren, first responders, active military, veterans, high school and college students at various skill levels, adult teams at vari- ous age ranges, even Special Olympics and wheelchair teams — will get the spotlight of being hosted at the Hall of Fame itself.
“With three weeks left to go before the event takes place, we’ve got about 350 teams registered,” Cassidy said last week, adding that he hopes to reach 500 by tip-off. “And the growth potential is really unlimited. In Spokane, they’ve been doing it for 33 years. They’ve got 7,000 teams. And we’re prepared at Eastern States to beat them.”
Doleva agrees. He knows it will take time to ramp up to
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40 JUNE 12, 2023
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