- 27,110 players
- 6933 teams
- 200,000 people came from mainly the Northwest to participate in the festivities
- Forty downtown city blocks are transformed into 450 basketball courts
- 693 people play from states other than WA, OR, MT, and ID (that includes me and Collin)
2010 was my fifth Hoopfest. This year we had the usual team of Chris “Maverick” Powers, Collin “My Dog Ate my Homework” Parker, Pat “Hot Sauce” Nicholes, and me. As usual, the weekend was full of adventure.
After making it to Spokane, all the usual suspects began to assemble. Maverick, Hot Sauce, and I played some Friday afternoon golf and enjoyed some tasty Northwest beers. We picked up Collin from the airport and headed downtown to fuel up for Saturday’s basketball. I was a little over-zealous in ordering a burger with two six ounce patties, ham, pineapple, swiss, and all the vegetables. It weighed as much as my arm and I didn’t come close to finishing it.
Despite our impeccable preparation, the basketball on Saturday did not go as planned. Our team, Bardo’s Best in the West, was stunned in our first game, in control and leading 15-12 BUT losing 18-15 in overtime. We went cold. It was the one that got away and a big momentum swing. Still reeling from that loss, we faced a difficult team in our 2nd tilt and lost 20 – 14. Our efforts earned us a 10 AM game on Sunday in the consolation bracket. The silver lining was that with the important basketball out of the way we could let loose and drink it up. Bardo’s headed over and watched Rohit’s team, Team BK, in a thrilling OT victory. We celebrated by drinking delicious Mexican beers at the Azteca with Reid’s hooligan crew.
One of the highlights of the weekend followed after the copious amounts of Mexican cerveza. Bardos matched up against Reid’s crew in a wildly hilarious 3 on 3 game on the unused Hoopfest courts. It was a blast, those guys crack me up.
After showering and relaxing for a bit, Pat, Collin, Chris, and I decided to meet up with Rohit and his posse at a downtown bar. We had a sweet taxi driver named Ralph whose van had reclining back seats. Maverick and I enjoyed a 15 minute siesta on the reclining seat and woke finding ourselves at a local Spokane taco joint, the pit stop before the bar. This was the site of something spectacular.
Pat was working on applying hot sauce from a ketchup-like plastic bottle to his burrito when something became lodged in the nozzle. Pat thought to use the brute force approach and squeezed the life out of it; out came a Mt. St. Helens sized explosion of hot sauce once the obstruction was cleared. Collin was directly in the blast zone!
Collin's response was 5 seconds of silence at the shear amazement then a "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" We all laughed uncontrollably.
The Sunday basketball went extremely well with our team winning two games quite easily, 20-6 and 20-4, winning the Consolation Bracket and restoring hope that we could one day bring home the Championship T-shirts.
That capped another good Hoopfest year; we’ll be back for more in 2011!
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