Vancouver Metro Basketball League

By Andrew ‘Soda’ Wadden

This past weekend marked the 25th anniversary of the Dolphin Classic Basketball tournament which was held this year at the Thompson Community Center outdoor courts in Richmond, BC. If your not familiar with Dolphin, it’s probably the best summer basketball tournament in all of western Canada with some of the best ballers from the pacific northwest coming to play.
I joined the Metro League team for Saturday’s games, sitting on the bench playing the role of coach while the boys competed in some very close, high octane games. The first thing I noticed at Dolphin was the level of competition and how good it was. Every team was competing with one another with only a handful of games being a blow out. The Metro team, led by player/coach Mark Starkey, lost their opening night game on Friday night in a close battle with Athelite which was captained by Vancouver Titans guard Aman Heran. The one loss on Friday meant that the Metro team needed to run the gauntlet from this point on if they wanted to win it all and Saturday the boys went to work on reaching that goal. I arrived to Thompson CC an hour or so after the Metro team won their morning match up against team Reign, which put the Metro team back in the running for that chip. With a few hours to kill before Metro’s next game I sat back and took in a few games while enjoying a cold brew in the beer garden which is located dangerously next to the courts. The games that I took in were unbelievable. Close, scrappy, and exciting are just a few ways to describe the action. Let me put the play into perspective. You have pros, college and top high schoolers all playing on the same court. It’s Vancouver’s version of Rucker Park in New York City. The level was that high with dunks, blocks, elbows the whole nine going down. Each team scrapped it out with one another, but once the final buzzer sounded the respect amongst the teams shown through. Everything was left on the court, which impressed me the most.
The Metro League team played their third game of the weekend on Saturday afternoon, versus the Runnin’ Rebels which was led one of the Dolphin organizers Steve Lee. The game was tight throughout with the game going down to the final minute before the Metro team pulled it out giving them a 2-1 record going into their final round robin game later that night. Between that game and Metro’s final game of the day I got a chance to watch the UBC T-Birds team play, which surprisingly enough didn’t fair too well in this tourney. Here you have the team that was ranked #1 in Canada throughout the CIS season last year, losing in a summer basketball tourney. That’s how good this tournament is. Metro League had their final game of the round robin versus a team called NWO which featured Metro League All-Star Igor Dutina. Dutina was on fire early but couldn’t control his emotions, picking up a few early fouls and technicals which resulted in him fouling out in the first half. NWO picked up the slack and gave the Metro Leaguer’s a run for their money with the game going down to the final buzzer, before Metro pulled out the win.
I didn’t go on Sunday, the final day of the tournament, which featured an exciting dunk contest and three-point shoot-out and of course the quarter, semi and final games of the day but I did feel that I got a strong feeling for what this tournament is all about. If you get a chance to come out next summer, do so. The crowd, atmosphere and level of play is unparalleled for summer basketball tournaments in western Canada. Truly one of the best and a can’t miss for any basketball lover. I know I’ll be there next year, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll suit up for a run. However, don’t count on me leaving my spot from the Metro League bench.