Feeling the heat at Silver Hoops 2017

At times it was windy, at times tempers flared, the whole time it was scorching hot, but 24th annual Silver Hoops Basketball tournament was the biggest and best edition of the event to date.

Tournament organizers knew something was up two weeks ago when there was a higher number than usual of pre-registrations than what had become the norm over the past few years.

138 teams and roughly 3,000 people from all over the region ended up playing in Kellogg on Saturday, spending their time in the area between Kellogg City Park and the iconic Teeters Field Courts.

Last year the event drew 117 teams and roughly 2,000 people.

Participants arrived Saturday morning and flooded the Kellogg Basketball Court.

For the first few hours of the event, all 18 courts had teams playing on them.

Each game typically lasts around 30 minutes with teams playing to 20.

Every 45 minutes, a court would have new set of participants

Midway through Saturday, the action broke for a few minutes to allow the annual slam dunk competition to commence.

Local baller Garrett Wendt impressed the crowd with several vicious slams on his way to first place.

Saturday’s festivities ended with the tournament’s newest addition, the 5-on-5 exhibition.

Teams for this event were built throughout the day and battled out a few full court games to keep the basketball playing late into the evening.

Championship Sunday is where things really started to tighten up as teams were required to play almost perfect games in order to win championships in their divisions.

Dalton Thompson, a member of the team that won the men’s age 18-30 division, spoke about how he and his teammates look forward to Silver Hoops each year.

“This tournament is probably the most fun one we play in,” Thompson said. “It is really laid back, but always has really good competition.”

The Historic Silver Valley Chamber of Commerce organizes the event and director Colleen Rosson was very pleased with how this year’s event turned out.

“It was a great tournament,” Rosson said.

“We have a great core group who puts on the tournament and runs it very well every year, some have even been organizing this event almost from the dawn of time. We had teams from Coulee Dam, Washington, to Seeley Lake, Montana, and from Bonners Ferry to Moscow. People seem to really enjoy our tournament and come back.”

Rosson in addition to all the volunteers and organizers, Rosson wanted to give a special thank you to Tim Mitchel and Al Arnone.

Mitchel and Arnone have competed and participated in the event for several years now.

Both bring several teams/participants into the event and always contribute when they can.

“They’re great ambassadors for the tournament,” Rosson said.

Winning teams (which can be seen in the photos accompanying this story) received champion t-shirts and all participants received string bags filled with items such as first-aid kits, water bottles, and other goodies.

North Idaho College provided the bags and the items inside them were donated by supporting local business.

As for the money side of things, the total funds raised by the event have not yet been released, but Rosson said that it was a “significant amount.”

All of the money raised from the event goes to the Silver Valley Chamber and grants for youth groups who helped set up the event and run the tournament.

Rosson explains that the youth groups are vital to setting up and maintaining the event throughout the weekend.

The Silver Valley Chamber of Commerce plans to use some of the funds earned to improve other events that they host, including Silver Hoops.