Team and tourney enter Hall
Hall recognizing Riverside event and 1974-79 AKO Fratmen basketball squad
As the Windsor/Essex County Sports Hall of Fame prepares to induct eight new members into its 37th class on Friday, it will also honour the Riverside Minor Hockey International BantamMidget Tournament and the Windsor AKO Fratmen junior men’s basketball team (19741979).
The Riverside tournament is headed into its 58th season, while the AKO basketball team won six straight national titles in the 1970s. The event will take place at the Caboto Club.
“This was an absolute thrill when we got the call that this was happening,” Riverside president Anne Marie Schofield said. “It was out of left field, but, when you stop to think about it, I think it’s deserving.
“It’s an amazing, historical event that is being recognized for its longevity and continuity and that’s worth recognizing.”
The tournament, which started in 1959 with 20 teams from Ontario and the United States, is the oldest bantam tournament in Ontario.
Over the years, teams from Sweden, Great Britain, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Russia have competed.
“That tournament is a mainstay and just a fun thing to do,” Schofield said.
She got started in 2004 with her son Tyler playing, but has continued on long after he finished playing.
“It’s a fun place to be during the holidays,” said Schofield, who has seen the tournament move from Riverside Arena to the WFCU Centre. “It’s the high school reunion every year.
“While the charm of Riverside Arena may be gone, we’re doing as much to make the new home feel cozy. In the end, it’s the people, the kids, the food and the tradition.”
AKO has a long history in junior basketball, with the team winning its first national title in 1946, but the club was dominant with six Canadian titles in the 1970s under the coaching of brothers Randy and Sam Sasso.
“It’s very nice,” Sam Sasso said of the hall honouring the team. “I think it’s well deserved, but any time you’re honoured by any kind of body of that stature, I think it’s a wonderful honour and we’re very proud. We’re very pleased, very honoured and it’s very thoughtful for the Hall to honour.”
AKO went undefeated in Ontario and at the Canadian championships for five straight years to secure the E.W. Bowering Trophy from 1974-78. The 1979 team lost just a single game on the way to the sixth title.
“It’s always about the players,” Sasso said. “We had great athletes. Terrific high school ball in Windsor really fuelled the run we had.
“We were dominant in that we won, but we didn’t thump teams. When we were in Nova Scotia, our first one, and we won in double overtime. When we won in New Brunswick, we had to come back, and it was a great comeback. Although we were dominant and won six Canadian championships, it’s not like we were dominating.”
But there would be no seventh title.
“We had put together a really good team in the seventh year and the news came down that there would be no challenges,” Sasso said.
Because of Windsor’s dominance, the other provinces opted to discontinue competing.