Big Night at North Canterbury Sport and Rec Trust Awards
On Friday 1st of November, the wider North Canterbury sporting community gathered for the 18th edition of the North Canterbury Sport and Recreation Trust’s 2019 awards dinner. North Canterbury Basketball was well represented with Committee members Matt Cunninghame, and Nicky Simpson, Development Manager George Robinson, Coach Wade Parata and player, Esra McGoldrick all attending the NCBA table.
Matt and Esra were finalists for Coach of the Year and Junior Sportswomen of the Year respectively, while Gordon Wong was a finalist for Service to Sport. The South Island Primary Tournament was a finalist for Event of the Year. While 3 others in our basketball family were finalists, Sam Watkins and Liam Connelly for coach of the year, and Helen Mathews for Junior Sportswomen of the year. All up basketball had 8 finalists across 4 different categories, and what a night it turned out to be.
Kicking off the preceding’s was Junior Sportswomen of the year.
Both Helen and Esra have had extremely successful 2019 seasons.
Helen was a big contributor to the Canterbury Wildcats, and the NC Premier Women’s team, where she won MVP of the final. Helen was also selected to the Steven Adam's invitational camp and the Waitaha u19 side. Finally, Helen represented New Zealand at the 3X3 Asia Cup.
Esra reached the pinnacle of basketball for women in NZ, being named in the Tall Ferns team for the William Jones Cup. Esra also a key member of the NC Women’s premier side, and McAlpines Mitre 10 Mega Rangiora NC Spirit team, and was named to the Basketball New Zealand WBC Tier 2 All-Star 5.
Esra McGoldrick was announced the winner of the Junior Sportswomen of the Year.
Coach of the Year had 3 finalists, and all 3 were basketball coaches. Matt, Liam, and Sam have touched all areas of the basketball world this year, and between them, they have impacted a lot of kids. Matt took the NC u20 Club side to winners of the middle section this year and is a stalwart of the Hoops program. Matt also coached an u17 Mainland rep side.
Sam was an Assistant coach for the u15 Waitaha girls that finished 3rd at the National tournament, while he also took his Rangiora High School girls to 6th in the South Island and qualifying them for Nationals.
Liam was the u19 Waitaha Boys A assistant coach and B team head coach. He helped the Boys A team come 2nd at Nationals, and took the B team to a respectable 10th. Liam also was the head coach of the Rangiora Boys High School team.
Liam’s achievements with the Waitaha u19 boys, saw him take home Coach of the Year.
After a long wait between drinks… and with plenty of food consumed, the Service to Sports award rolled around. Gordon has done everything possible to help North Canterbury Basketball succeed. From Chairperson to Coach, to BBQ chief, to Manager. Gordon has put hours and hours into the game, not only in 2019 but across many years. Unfortunately, Gordon was unable to attend the awards and missed out on being presented with his truly well-deserved Service to Sports Award.
Finally, the Event of the Year award was the last award of the evening. The 29th Edition of the SIPT was a big one; 44 teams, coming from as far south as Alexandra, and as North as Blenheim. A lot of work goes behind the scenes to make the tournament so successful from organizing refs, the draw, floor controllers, and the booklet. We are pretty close to peak capacity so we cannot wait for the new Stadium Waimakariri to be built in 2021. Read more about the SIPT here.
Well, all that hard work paid off, with the SIPT taking home the Event of the Year.
The tournament brings so much into the North Canterbury region, and next year is the 30th edition and we can't wait to make the event bigger and better.
Ps. Wouldn’t your company’s name look really good in front of “South Island Primary Tournament” - we think so! If you are interested in becoming the Naming Right Sponsor for the SIPT, then we would love to hear from you.
The night was a great achievement for basketball in the region, and it was a chance for some of our hand working, and successful individuals to get the recognition they deserved.
Thank you to the SportsTrust, Mainpower and all the other sponsors for putting on the night, and ofcourse Richard Connelly from GameFaceNZ for the photos, we look forward to attending the 2020 awards. Head over to https://www.sportstrust.org.nz/sports-awards to view all the award winners from the evening.
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