How to Judge Basketball Training in Regina (Nine Honest Questions)

Every basketball program in this city will tell you it develops players. That is not information. What tells you something is how a program answers specific questions, and whether it answers them with numbers or with adjectives.

Here are the nine we would ask if we were the parent, and our own answers underneath each. Take this list to any gym in Regina, including ours.

1. How many kids to a coach?

This is the whole ball game. A child in a group of eight gets corrected by name, repeatedly, every week. A child in a group of thirty gets a turn.

HoopLife: Skills Training and Girls Only cap at eight players. 3x3 caps at sixteen because it is a playing session. Camps cap at 32 and split into age groups from there.

2. Is my child grouped by ability, or just by age?

A beginner in a room of club players learns to stand at the back. A club player in a room of beginners learns nothing.

HoopLife: three age bands (7-10, 11-13, 14-17), and each one runs a Beginner session and an Advanced session separately.

3. Does it run in the summer?

Most youth sport in Saskatchewan disappears in July and comes back in September, which is a third of the year with no coaching.

HoopLife: weekly sessions run every week of the year, summer included, plus full-week summer camps.

4. Who owns the gym?

A program renting a school gym loses its booking whenever the school needs it. Practices move, get cancelled, or end up somewhere across the city on a Tuesday in February.

HoopLife: we own the HoopLife Centre at 661 Solomon Cres — a full-size regulation hardwood court, six adjustable hoops, shot clocks on both ends and a premium scoreboard, plus a turf room and a lounge with a window onto the court. Nothing gets bumped.

5. Do the hoops lower?

A seven-year-old shooting at a ten-foot rim learns to heave. That habit takes years to unpick.

HoopLife: all six hoops adjust — lowered for the young ones, full height for high school. Young Stars (ages 3-6) runs on lowered and mini hoops so every child actually scores.

6. Is there a tryout?

For a child who is not sure yet, a tryout is a reason to never start.

HoopLife: the HoopLife League has no evaluation and no tryout. Teams are formed by the head coach during the program. Nobody is cut.

7. Does every child actually play?

Ask about game time specifically, not practice time. They are different products.

HoopLife: in the league's 5v5 divisions there are three games a night so every player gets two full games, refereed with real scorekeepers. In the 3x3 divisions it is a round robin with at least two games guaranteed. Every weekly session finishes with live play.

8. Is anything taught besides basketball?

Skills fade. The way a kid handles a mistake does not.

HoopLife: every league night includes a Confidence, Leadership & Basketball IQ workshop with the player's own coach, and every camp day has a leadership and character block. It is scheduled, not hoped for.

9. What happens if we cannot afford it?

Every program has an answer. Some of them are better than others.

HoopLife: payment plans on the league on request, and BOOST Kids, where a Regina business pays for a child's full year at no cost to the family. Anyone can apply, any time. Nobody in the gym knows who the BOOST Kids are unless the family says.

The part we cannot put in a list

Numbers only get you so far. What you actually want to know is whether your child will want to come back next week, and no website can answer that.

So the last question is the only one that matters: can we come and see? Ours is the $10 Get Started package — a development planning meeting with a HoopLife Director plus a first training session. Ten dollars, and you will know.