New to Basketball
This section is to help you as parents figure out how it works and what to expect. Bedford Minor Basketball offers two programs based on ages. The first program is Little Eagles and the second is the regular league teams. Please review our policies in the menu as most questions are answered throughout them.
Little Eagles
The Little Eagles is a program designed to introduce basketball fundamentals and a love of the game to children who are 6 and 7 years old. The program is offered to both girls and boys and runs for 14 weeks. The sessions are one hour long, once a week. The Little Eagles program starts in early October and runs until the end of February. REGISTRATION for Little Eagles will begin near the end of August.
What days does Little Eagles run on?
We start registration early in August and continue into September. While this is going on, we are also working on confirming gym bookings. Once we get a look at all the numbers of registrants in each age - we have a better idea of how many gym slots we require for all of the teams and we will post the schedules as soon as we know what they are.
Are there opportunities to volunteer to coach the Little Eagles?
Yes we are always looking for great volunteers! BMBA offers assistance and support to all their volunteers so please don’t feel you need to know all the ins and outs of basketball, we help teach that! We welcome parents to coach so please contact bmbaregistrar@gmail.com to express your interest in getting involved.
Can I stay to watch the sessions?
We encourage parents not to stay in the gym while the children are practicing.We find that the program runs smoother when the children are more focused and they are usually more focused when their parents are not in the gym.
Do the girls and boys practice together?
This year the groups are separate, Little Eagles girls aged 6/7 and a separate Little Eagles boys aged 6/7 as well.
Do the Little Eagles play basketball games against other clubs?
No, this program is focused on skill development and although children will have scrimmages by the end of the season, they will play against the other children in the Little Eagles group. This season we are exploring the possibility of hosting a jamboree with other clubs.
What are the ages for participation?
Little Eagles / Tots is for children born in 2016 and 2017.
Is Little Eagles the same as the Tots program?
Yes, Little Eagles was formerly called Tots.
If there is no school is there still practice?
If school is closed for weather related reasons or for a holiday there is no practice. There is practice on a school professional development (PD) days.
Regular League Players
The regular league players are broken down by girls and boys and age groups of U10, U12, U14, U16 and U18.
Warm-up Sessions
We start the season off with ‘back to basketball sessions’. These are held in September and are broken into the appropriate groupings and are offered to all registered league players, these sessions are NOT for Little Eagles. They also are not mandatory but do provide a nice way to get the kids back into the gym with a basketball after their summer break to help prepare them for the upcoming classification sessions.
Classification Sessions
After the warmup sessions - players are grouped in their appropriate groups and a classification schedule is posted and communicated to all registered players via email. The classification sessions are closed to parents and are held by all the coaches and an independent evaluator and a board member. You can read more from the Player Classification Policy. We ask all new players to the regular league teams, to please bring DOB identification to the first session with them.
Each group will have three classification sessions offered. In order to be considered for a REP team, the player must attend a minimum of two of these as outlined in our Player Classification Policy. Through these classification sessions - players are placed together with other players of like skillsets and teams are formed. All of the teams will be posted on the website and all families will be notified via email of their child’s placement. In each grouping there is always two REP teams and the rest are REC teams. Read the difference between the two here. REP teams have a second practice per week and there is also an additional gym fee to cover this additional practice.
When are Practices?
Once the teams are formed, coaches will be granted their practice slots and will contact their players and families to communicate all of this. Priority for gym slots are given to the coaches availability NOT players. Our coaches are all volunteers, without who, players could not play, so we try and accommodate their schedules when it comes to practices. We usually have over 40 teams all requiring at least one, sometimes two practices per week, it takes time to put this all together and once teams are assigned to coaches, the coaches will contact the families with their practice times and locations.
Game Schedules
Each team will have a minimum of one practice per week and one game on the weekend. The games are scheduled by the league and are scheduled throughout the various gyms within metro. BMBA has no control over the league’s scheduling or locations.
High School
If the U16 and U18 players are trying out for their high school teams - we make allowances for this process by NOT announcing and forming teams until the high school teams are picked and announced. Division 1 High school players are excluded from playing in the regular metro league.
