New basketball facility opening in Regina

A new basketball facility in Regina could start turning hoop dreams into realities.

HoopLife, a basketball academy created in 2016, is set to open a brand new facility in northeast Regina in September at 661 Solomon Cres. It will have a full-sized court, a training facility with turf and a lobby for parents and spectators to use. The facility will also be home to club leagues and elite teams.

HoopLife co-founder Habib Habib speaking outside of the location of its new basketball facility on June 7, 2021. (Britton Gray/980 CJME)

“We’re just super, super excited to have kids come out and showcase their skills and use basketball as that tool to take their skills to another level and get post-secondary scholarships and just be better as human beings,” says Habib Habib, a co-founder of HoopLife.

Habib says he knows how scarce top-tier basketball facilities are in Regina. He and his family moved to Regina from Ethiopia when he was just six years old.

“Surprisingly I couldn’t skate so I thought basketball was just a perfect fit for myself,” the now-27-year-old said.

But it wasn’t the easiest sport to find a place to play growing up for him and his now-business partner Andrew Gottselig.

“So we had to sneak into a gym and get in trouble or go outside and play basketball where there’s no mesh and the ground is awful,” Habib said.

“We’re seeing that basketball is growing tremendously in Canada, throughout our province and throughout our city. We want kids to come out and showcase their skills and let this be a platform to take them to the next level.”

And now they’re hoping to help kids reach their own basketball potential.

HoopLife provides training for kids from seven years old to 18, with summer camps set to begin again in July at École Monseigneur de Laval in Regina.

And while Saskatchewan is still a hockey- and football-crazed province, Habib is seeing a growing interest in people wanting to shoot three-pointers or throw down a dunk.

“But since the (Toronto) Raptors won (the NBA title), with the Saskatchewan Rattlers becoming a pro team in Saskatchewan, we’re seeing a turnaround quick. We’re not just going to see everything right away, in the next two (or) three years. The fact that the Raptors won, there’s going to be a lot of younger kids that want to pick up a basketball,” Habib said.

And with that growing interest, they feel they can now accommodate it with the new facility.

“If we had our own facility that is just dedicated to basketball, more kids would start showing up and the more kids that we can bring into our facility, they can stay out of trouble and most importantly, get their life going. So we knew that there was a need for this facility,” Habib said.

Habib admitted they took a hit due to COVID, like everywhere else in the world.

“We made sure that we needed to get our dreams to come true so we needed to focus and put our heads together and it’s a lot of days and long hours and long nights and we’re making sure we come out ahead of COVID,” Habib said.