What the Raptors Win Means for Canadians

By AMITHA KALAICHANDRAN, M.D. June 14, 2019

James Naismith was a young Canadian pre-med when he decided to try something: hang a fruit-basket at either end of a Springfield, Massachusetts gymnasium and challenge players to get a ball into the basket. Eventually, tired of taking a ladder to climb up and retrieve the ball each time someone scored, he sawed a hole in the bottom of each basket. Basketball was born: the year was 1891, and Naismith was just 30. Naismith went on to medical school but continued to help refine the game, even writing its first rulebook while coaching at the University of Kansas. While most of my peers in medicine now also have passion projects, Naismith was ahead of his time balancing his interest in medicine with his passion for innovation. Growing up, our ‘Heritage minute’ TV commercials would feature his invention prominently on most major TV networks.

Fast forward to November 1, 1946, and the first NBA game took place in Toronto: The Toronto Huskies and the New York Knickerbockers (Toronto lost by two points). But over the years Canadians would watch from afar as the league continued to develop teams across the U.S., leaving Canada out in the dark years before “FOMO” was a thing. Until 1995 that is. An announcement I was just old enough to remember: Canada would be getting two NBA teams. The Vancouver Grizzlies, named after the bears that roam Canada’s North, and the Toronto Raptors, a nod to prehistoric findings concentrated in Canada. Canadians in the Eastern part of Canada tended to…