Four teams are going to punch a Big Ticket this weekend on Burnaby Mountain.
Forty students, meanwhile, will reap the benefits towards their next step in scholarship awards.
The inaugural high school basketball tournament, which began this week with games at a variety of Greater Vancouver venues, comes to a big wrap this weekend with the finals at Simon Fraser University.
The tourney follows in the footsteps of previous provincial groundbreakers the HSBC and Telus tournaments, continuing on the goal of celebrating graduating student athletes. The tourney is offering 40 $1,000 scholarships (20 boys, 20 girls) for those moving on to post-secondary studies.
“Our goal when we created this event was to develop a top-tier tournament to enhance the landscape of high school sport in B.C. and create the best possible experience for participants,” stated Big Ticket chair Winston Brown. “Thanks to $20,000 donations from both Onni Group and Venuekings.com, we’re well on our way to achieving that goal.”
Burnaby South is the lone local team in competition, fielding teams in the junior boys and girls divisions, as well as the senior girls division. Four divisions of 16 teams each – senior boys and girls, and junior boys and girls – will bring many of the top teams from the region onto the SFU court.
The tournament semifinals are slated to go Friday, with action from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., while the finals take to the court on Saturday, with the senior girls final tipping off at 5 p.m. and senior boys final at 7 p.m.
Admission tickets are available through venuekings.com at a discounted rate, or at the door.
