It was a packed house at the Vauxhall High School gymnasium as young and old were entertained by the Harlem Crowns who played the Vauxhall Vikings boys basketball team which served as a fundraiser for the squad on Tuesday.
“We were really impressed, the crowd was great... we sold over 200 tickets,” said Daryl Johnson, head coach of the Vikings who will be using the fundraiser to offset travel costs for the team at tournaments. “The crowd was really involved and there were so many kids. At half-time, I don’t how many kids were on the floor shooting around.”
The Crowns, with their Harlem Globetrotter-esque style show contacted Johnson back in November and with the blessing of the school in conferring with principal Todd Ojala, the two teams eventually took to the court on Tuesday in which a big advertising blitz helped draw a crowd.
“We put posters up in town, the paper did a nice article and we had it advertised in the school and on Facebook,” said Johnson. “Something like that doesn’t come along all the time in Vauxhall and it’s something for people to come out and see. They were here in the ’90s so some people talking to people in town remembered them. There was a lot of excitement for the event before it even happened.”
Johnson jokingly did not have to be a Zen-master in his coaching duties in drafting ways to stop the high powered Crowns offence fueled by showmanship, pranks and crowd involvement.
“They wanted the refs to do certain things to help the show out and they just wanted us to play man to man so that their show works. They run it through the middle (Herbie Scaife) and he’s quite the showman driving the whole thing,” said Johnson.
Unfortunately, Johnson hasn’t had to do much coaching either when his Vikings’ team returned to the reality of River Ridge Basketball League play this past week.
Monday’s contest was a 40-point blowout against Senator Gershaw from Bow Island and last Wednesday’s road contest against St. Mary’s Celtics netted them a 50-point plus victory. The Vikings have not played Chamberlain School yet from Grassy Lake in River Ridge competition, but it looks like it will be the norm for the Vikings in league play to be dominating its opposition.
“You can’t learn as much as you’d like to (in league play), but then you do get good minutes for second-string players and such. So there are advantages we can use to improve,” said Johnson. “Those players who may not get as much time in tougher games will then be more ready when those games do come up. Tournaments for sure is where we’ll see more competition.”
The Vikings are off to Claresholm this weekend for a tournament before hitting the road on Monday with another league game against Bow Island.
“We play Picture Butte on Friday to start the tournament, so that one will be a good one,” said Johnson.