Raptors championship has Ottawa-Gatineau kids rushing to basketball

The "Raptors ripple" is being felt across the national capital regionas basketball registrations spike in the wake of Toronto's NBA championship.

As the banner was hoistedto the rafters of Scotiabank Arena before Tuesday night's season opening win,the Ottawa Next Level U-12 AA team was practicing in a Bells Corners school gym.

"It really motivated me to keep pushing and try harder so maybe I could make it into the NBA one day," said Magnus Muirhead.

His teammate Malik Charlery said it got some of his friends into basketball thathadn't been before.

"It meant a lot for the one Canadian team to do so good," Charlery said.

Both11-year-oldssaidthey are trying to bring the best of point guard Kyle Lowry's style of play to their game.

Their team is part of the Kanata Youth Basketball Association, whichhas seen a 20 per cent jump in registration bringing membership up to about 1,200 playersthis year.

The KYBA said the biggest increase was in boys Grades 7 to 9 and they also had record-breaking tryouts for the competitive teams in Grades 8 and 9.

Coach Shamir Kanji said there have been wait lists of 20 to 40 kids for some teams and interest is spread between boys and girls.

"Regardless of where they live, they feel the Raptors are their team," he said.

"Especially here in our Ottawa, our numbers have just gone absolutely through the roof in competitive, in house league, in semi-competitive[teams]."

Kanji said the association's growth is limited because of the lack of available time in school gyms.

"The only reason we've stopped at 20 per cent is because of the facility crunch that we have."

Other associations report growth

The Gloucester Cumberland Basketball Association has also seen a 20 per cent increase, mostly in ageseight to 13.

The Ottawa Shooting Stars had registration fill up in a mere two minutes and seven seconds for its Atom Boys House League. That's seven teams of 12 kids.

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The Associationde basketball de Gatineau said its registrations have increased by 25 per cent compared to last year.

Tryouts became even more competitive, according to Jonathan Brulotte, president of the ABG.

"We were expecting between 20 and 30 kids in the gym, but we found ourselves with 50 to 60 people at the same time competing for 12 places," Brulotte said in French.

The AGB even created a competitive boys league for eight and nine year olds to free up space in the rec league.