Northern Bounce Basketball Academy now has its own home at the newly-christened Prince George Dome.
The renovation work to the gym floor in what used to be known as the Roll-A-Dome is complete and the spring session is just about to begin for the city's club basketball players, who will have uninterrupted access to the freshly-sanded hardwood court equipped with new hoops where they can hone their talents and gather strength to become better players on their high school or provincial teams.
For Northern Bounce director/founder Jordan Yu, having his own space in a centrally-located building easily-accessible to most of the young players in the city was essential to help grow the game. It means guaranteed gym times during prime-time hours after school during spring and fall and when school is out for the summer.
"High schools shut down for the summer and they don't open up their gym spaces in the summertime except for John McInnis, the College of New Caledonia and the Northern Sport Centre, so that, combined with the fact all the other sports are competing for gym time, is the lure for Northern Bounce to go to the Prince George Dome," said Yu.
"We can develop consistent programs in the spring and summer going into this space and it gives kids the opportunity to get into the game and train."
When Yu moved back to Prince George two years ago after playing five seasons with the UBC Thunderbirds and a couple years coaching at UBC and Langara College, he realized that aside from the UNBC Junior Timberwolves program and the Prince George Minor Basketball Association, there were no other skill development programs for basketball in Prince George. Seeing the Drive Basketball club program set up in Richmond by Pasha Bains and Chad Clifford, Yu's former UBC teammates, provided the impetus for Yu and his wife Candace to form Northern Bounce Academy
"We were a step behind - one of the goals was to help us get caught up with the rest of Canada," said Yu, head coach of the Duchess Park senior boys team. "There's been huge growth in club basketball in every major city. There are now at least 100 club basketball programs in Vancouver, it's actually oversaturated. Ten years ago there were not many at all."
The success of club programs across the country produced many of the players who played on Canada's under-18 men's team which won the under-19 FIBA basketball World Cup in Cairo, Egypt, last summer.
The Northern Bounce gym, which is adjacent to the roller rink, has two NBA-style portable hoops that can be raised or lowered depending on the age of the players, as well as four other wall-mounted hoops for the two side courts.
Northern Bounce has three academy age groups - junior (Grades 5-7), high school (Grades 8-9) and prep (Grades 10-11, with room for Grade 12s moving on to play college or university), all of which are co-ed. The junior academy has 20 players, high school academy has 21, and prep academy has 18. The academy sessions run Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, beginning next week.
Tuesdays and Thursdays will be set aside for the club elite team program, which is open only to males this year. Northern Bounce has coaches already in place to form boys teams in under-13, under-14, under-15, under-16 and under-17 age groups. Tryouts began this past week. The club teams will play from June to September. Expanding the elite team program to girls is in Yu's long-range plan.
Northern Bounce had two travel teams last summer - U-14 and U-16 - and Yu took them to Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., for a tournament. Gonzaga is on the tournament schedule again in June. The Northern Bounce travel teams will also go to the Genesis Classic in Calgary in May and the club national championships in August in Langley.
On Fridays, the elite teams will play scrimmages against former high school and college players, including Yu and his brother Lee-Wei and sister Reena, all of whom were high school standouts as basketball players.
Nathan Yu won't be joining his siblings. He's in his fifth season playing semipro basketball in Hong Kong.
