Basketball NWT along with Basketball Nunavut and Basketball Yukon have organized the first ever All Territory Men's High Performance Basketball Program and Team Tournament.

The program brought together 14 athletes and three coaches from each territory from April 11-16 in Yellowknife, N.W.T.

The goal of the program is to provide up to 42 of the best high school basketball players in all three territories with a week of personal development both on and off the court. The camp is part of a pan–territorial basketball player development initiative that is designed to help promote participation, excellence, capacity and collaborative interaction for and between each territory.

The program will include a series of structured games within a round robin tournament format, skill development session and academic/life skill sessions.

The technical director of the program is former Canadian Olympian and professional player Greg Francis, current head coach at the University of Alberta and head coach of Canada Basketball's junior men's national team.

The program will help identify, develop and expand the pool of talented athletes and coaches within each territory. Approximately one half of the athletes participating in the program will be First Nation and Inuit athletes.

"We see this as a tremendous development opportunity for territorial athletes and coaches. All of the territorial athletes and coaches will be learning from a tremendous coach in Greg Francis,” said Tim Brady, president of Basketball Yukon.

"We are also excited to be offering a life skills component. Great things happen when you collaborate and we think this will be a great camp.”

Each evening the players will compete against each other on one of four teams.

"We are excited to be able to offer this first ever high performance All Territory camp in Yellowknife” said Damien Healy, president of Basketball NWT.

"For the past four years, we have worked collaboratively with Basketball Nunavut and Basketball Yukon to organize and provide high performance training and competitive team opportunities for territorial basketball athletes. We believe this will be a tremendous opportunity to further develop our athletes and coaches in a collaborative way.”