Huskies’ giant support
Bogut backing Tassie’s NBL bid, and so is Mawson the mascot
AS Southern Huskies prepare to meet NBL officials next week to put their case for a licence, the Tasmanian club’s bid was turbo-charged yesterday when Australian basketball great Andrew Bogut threw his support behind the campaign.
On the day Huskies consortium spokesman David Bartlett revealed the club’s first “signing” — the 213cm mascot Mawson — the fledgling basketball club was on another high with the Bogut bonus.
The NBA champion player backed expansion of the NBL and said a team from Tasmania would be “cool”. He added there was a basketball market waiting to be tapped on the island state.
Bartlett was rapt with the endorsement. “It was great to see one of Australia’s greatest ever basketballers stating his support for a Tasmanian NBL bid and for the Southern Huskies,” Bartlett said. “The consortium is meeting with NBL representatives next week.
“We have told them we want to know the future of the transaction with the Derwent Entertainment Centre and the Glenorchy council before we take our formal bid to the NBL in November, but we are having preliminary conversations.
“The first big hurdle to get over is the transaction with the Glenorchy City Council and getting some certainty around that and we will start talking with them this week.”
Southern Huskies memberships are approaching 3000 after only five days.
The public reveal of Mawson as the Huskies’ mascot came at the Australian Antarctic Festival on Hobart’s waterfront.
“The whole thing about the Southern Huskies is that we want to embrace the whole era of heroic exploration that the whole of Tasmania has deep linkages to,” Bartlett said.
“Therefore, we’re thrilled with our new seven-foot signing for the Huskies and his name is Mawson in honour of the great Australian explorer who left Tasmania almost 100 years ago to explore Antarctica.”
The Hobart Chargers are gearing up for their SEABL preliminary final against Geelong at the DEC on Friday night.
“We couldn’t be happier with the way the Hobart Char- gers and the Southern Huskies have been embraced by the community,” Bartlett said.
“We want 3000 Chargers fans howling like a husky at the basketball on Friday night.
“Anthony Stewart [Chargers coach] tells me that Thursday night’s training was one like he’s never seen before — it was aggressive, it was fast, it was pumped up.
“These guys are playing for each other and they are playing to reach the grand final and win the title.”