Coach Clement....Mother Teresa Tournament History ?

i'm a huge GTA hoops fan but i live 2 hours away from most of these tournaments and i was unable to make it down to the city this weekend for the MT tournament. This tournament looks like a great warmup for AAAA OFSAA, as did last weekend's St. Mike's. Coach Clement or any other local GTA basketball historians/insiders , could you please give me some tournament history with a list of past champions of the Mother Teresa Invitational? I've been to the Heinbuch, Fox, The Chancellor, SOSI and All Catholic in past years and i know they all have a keen eye on tradition and i also sense that the great GTA tournaments like the MT also have the same. Thanks in advance.

Pickering won in 2007 & 2008.
Mother Teresa 2009

The Senior Tournament has had high-caliber fields since its inception in 2007.

We have frequently attracted teams from outside the GTA and we had H.B. Beal and Guelph Centennial this year.

Because our Junior tournament has also grown in status in the last few years we have put together a strong team of coaches and teachers to run the tournament. There are too many to name on this post but the main organizers are: Coach Gill, Kirt McNeilly, Dave Ebreo, Coach Gallacher and myself.

A number of staff members including Ms. Paolini, Mr. Rogers and a number of others helped at the door.

We also have a very dedicated core of students to help at the door, the scorers table and concessions some of whom worked 12 hours a day for three days straight.

These are not kids in the basketball program but students on the Athletic Council or volunteers. They make a huge commitment. I am so impressed by these young ladies and young men. If you have any preconceptions of what this community is about you should watch some of these kids in action.

It is amazing that Coach Gallacher was able to win this tournament with all the distractions running a tournament of this size offers. As always Coach Gill did an amazing job of keeping the board updated he is the workhorse of our team. Coach Ebreo has really been stepping up also this year.

We are in the process of organizing a 16-team elementary school tournament for Friday, January 30.

We expect it to be a success because of the team of helpers and organizers we have in place.

Coach Clement, thanks for the rundown on the volunteer structure of your tournament. with such strong support it appears that you'll have a great tournament for years to come. Gill, thanks for the tournament history and best wishes to the team leading up to OFSAA. Is MT playing in St. Catherines at the All Ontario Catholic in February ?

We have not been invited for a number of years and I highly doubt we will be going this year.

i wasn't aware that it was an "invitational" per sae. i had the impression that associations had playdowns in some cases (ie Halton) and that there was an equal geographical representation from around the province. i read on some of the team websites months ago that they are playing this tournament...Hamilton Cathedral, Hamilton St. Thomas More, d'Youville...so i guess they would have been invited at the start of the school year ? in any case, is there a TDCAA representative ? it would seem your school's win last night would qualify you over Carr but...

Only a few regions actually have a playdown. Most teams attend on an invitational basis.

Does Peel have a playdown ?

Why no invitationfor MT? Aren't you Catholic enough??
Can't call a tournament all ontario catholic and have qualifiers all over the place and still exclude catholic schools, for whatever reason.

They might as well start inviting Public schools too as this tourney isn't a true representation of the best Catholic schools in the province.
Gotta love those All-Catholics (administrators/convenors), so tolerant, so fair, demonstrating fine Christian values as always.
Maybe someone should organize an all public tournament and exclude Catholic teams specifically. See how well that would go over.
Maybe call it the Heathen Classic....And doesn't that sound ridiculous too.

I'm sorry MT is not being included in these events as they are certainly the top contenders for the big prize. I'm sure there is history there as there was with the Fox but it only weakens the field. Ourtside of the GTA, it seems to be a trend though.

[quote="eagle flight"]Does Peel have a playdown ?[/quote]

There is no playdown in Peel.

in a perfect world they'd have the top catholic team from each of the associations either invited (which always has the potential for controversy) or decided by a playoff in smaller cities like Sudbury or Brantford. Ideally GTA should have 3 spots, GHAC 3 spots, and one from Niagara, Windsor/Sarnia, London, K-W, Guelph, Brantford, Kingston, Ottawa and Subury which from my memory is sort of how the lineup is every year. truthfully out of a 16 team tournament there should be a way for it to mimic OFSAA's representation and be fair but maybe politics has gotten in the way as Rec. suggests ? Not having the majority of Carr, MT, Campion, Xavier,Loyola, d'youville there makes it less than a true all-Catholic tourney....and of course Assumption, Trinity, STA......Cathedral, St. Thomas More......there's so many good teams.

Halton teams are very competitive and it's right that they have a qualifying tournament. The results this weekend have Assumption beating Loyola in the finals, with Aquinas beating Holy Trinity for bronze. Pick the number of teams allowed from those results. Seems reasonable, doesn't it?

Every Catholic school should have an invitation to compete for a spot if it chooses to accept an invitation. When the teams outnumber the allotted space for a region, a qualifying tournament should be held. Sounds alot like ofsaa, doesn't it? Why do it for some regions but not all the others?
There never seems to be a shortage of participants for high calibre tourneys in the GTA or anywhere else so I don't see the problem.
But there does seem to be a lack of reasoning and logical thinking outside the GTA and as long as prejudice and politics remain front and foremost, nothing will change.