Senior basketball teams at all three high schools in Whitehorse have a few more games of experience thanks to the second annual Road to the Gold Basketball Tournament held at F.H. Collins Secondary School and Porter Creek Secondary School from Thursday to Saturday.

This was the first tournament of the season, put on for this level of high school basketball in Whitehorse. It featured teams from Vanier Catholic Secondary, Porter Creek, F.H. Collins, as well as two American schools from Juneau-Douglas High School and Haines High School.

Despite both Haines and Juneau-Douglas playing each other in the two finals, the Whitehorse teams still did well and even had two tournament all-stars for the girls' category as well as three for the boys.

'It was a good tournament from a couple of perspectives,' said Tim Brady, president of Basketball Yukon and one of the organizers for the tournament. 'All of the teams had a chance to see how they play and sort of get a better idea of what they have to work on to continue to improve. Living where we are, anytime that we can get teams to come in and play us here it's a benefit.'

Prior to this competition, individual high schools in Whitehorse had to organize games and events between out-of-town teams, but that changed after Basketball Yukon was asked if they could help put on an annual tournament at the high school level.

The tournament is open to high school students in Grades 10 through 12, but if a student in Grade 9 is good enough to compete at this level, he or she would be allowed to take part. One of the main differences at this year's tournament was the absence of both a boys' and girls' team from the Northwest Territories, which brought the total of teams down to five in each category.

Participants played with the Federation of International Basketball rules, which include a 24-second shot clock and four 10-minute quarters, as opposed to the U.S. system, which doesn't have a shot clock and has four eight-minute quarters.

Each team played one game in a round robin format on all three days of the tournament before the playoffs began on Saturday at F.H. Collins.

Both teams from Vanier as well as the Porter Creek girls' and F.H. Collins boys' were eliminated in the semi-finals. The two American schools went undefeated, over the three days, against teams from Whitehorse.

Tournament all-stars for Whitehorse players in the girls' category included Chantai Minet, from F.H. Collins and Kendra Thompson from Porter Creek; while in the boys division Logan Gray was named for Vanier; Tony Nguyen, from F.H. Collins and Richard Hill, who played for Porter Creek.

Next year, Basketball Yukon hopes to increase the number of participating teams to eight and have involvement from B.C., Alberta and the Northwest Territories, which would offer more competition for the three local high schools.

Brady said there are a lot of advantages to holding this tournament.

'Kids in the Yukon don't get many games to play. A good season for high school basketball might be 12 or 15 games, so to have something here for our kids where we are bringing in some Alaskan schools just gives them more of a chance to play and their parents can come and watch them and fans can come out and see them,' he said. 'It really gives us an opportunity to promote the sport of basketball in the territory.'

Jamie Shaw is the head coach of the F.H. Collins boys' team, who went 2-2 in the tournament. He said he was pleased with the way his team played over the three days.

'I am pleased with how they performed,' Shaw said. 'I thought the effort they gave was great. I think they learned a lot about what they need to do in order to be successful, so we'll take those lessons and hopefully apply them to our next tournament.'

He said the main advantage for his players is being able to play some more homes games.

'We don't get a lot of home games here and it is nice for them to have the Alaskan teams come here and play them with our rules,' Shaw said. 'It works very well, it's a great level of competition and our kids benefit tremendously from playing at this level.'

Tony Nguyen is the starting point guard and team captain for the F.H. Collins boys' team. Nguyen was hoping to qualify for the finals, but still considered the tournament to be a success for his team.

'We played hard and it will come with time that we will mould as a team, but it was a good first tournament,' he said. 'Everyone got better, just being in the game helped everyone.'

Nguyen, who came out to watch the final between the two American teams, is committed to improving his game in the sport. He trained eight times a week for six weeks this past summer, and is currently practising at least four times a week.

He said he is confident about playing both American teams at the next tournament in Skagway, adding 'I definitely want to play them again, it will be good.'

The Juneau-Douglas girls' team beat Haines in the final by a score of 66-63; while in the boys category, Haines won over Juneau-Douglas 88-79.