| The Second Season
JUEL, Canada’s only provincial basketball league, enters its second season of play. The 18 member franchises have selected their rosters, and since the end of the Ontario High School girls’ basketball season have been working out with anticipation of the first weekend of play. The most exciting off season development for JUEL is the addition of the “Northern Lights” franchise based in Sault ste. Marie, Sudbury and North Bay with players from other parts of northern Ontario. A traditionally underserviced basketball constituency will now compete in what is a truly Province-wide league.
 The 2012 season will include more stops throughout the Province allowing for more direct exposure to Coaches from the next level. This year JUEL will host weekends in the following cities: Barrie, Brampton, Cambridge, Cornwall, Kingston, Kitchener/Waterloo, London, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, North York, Welland and Windsor. There were specific Universities and Colleges who worked hard to host a JUEL weekend, this is positive for both the schools and JUEL and a relationship of great value, the institutions include:
- Georgian College – Barrie, Queens University – Kingston, University of Waterloo – Waterloo, Niagara College – Welland, University of Windsor – Windsor and Redeemer University - Hamilton.
Teams will play 4 exhibition games and 17 regular season games for a total of 21 games. In a continued effort to prepare our players for the next level, JUEL has increased all games to 40 minutes (4-10 minute quarters). This will put an importance on game preparation, conditioning and deeper benches. The League Tournament will be hosted in Kitchener/Waterloo on May 4-6, 2012 avoiding “Mother’s Day” for the first time in years. The University of Waterloo along with Tyler Slipp have stepped up again this year and will be JUEL’s main site affording us a great facility to host the best female talent in the Province.
The “All-Star Game” will change format in 2012, 24 players will be selected (12 underclassmen, 12 seniors), each fielding a team to represent JUEL. Both teams will travel to Indianapolis on the weekend of May 18-20, 2012 to play against All-Stars from the State of Indiana.
Last season JUEL produced 1 program for the entire season with inserts for each weekend of competition. This season JUEL will produce flyers for each weekend of competition which will include news, updates, standings, current schedule and any important information required. All other information including the complete schedule, rosters, and league information can be found on the JUEL website at www.juel.ca.
Inaugural Season
The 2010-2011 season was a good start, many things had to be worked out on the fly, but for the most part feedback has been very positive. Ultimately the Players and Coaches performed at a high level week after week.
The “All-Star Game” was held at the University of Waterloo on Saturday April 30, 2011 during the “Play-in” Tournament. The game featured 28 of the best female players in the Province where 24 of them scored. The game was fast paced back-and-forth until the final 5 minutes where the East put together a run winning 78-63. Kim St. Pierre-Louis of the Ottawa Nationals was named the games MVP.
The class of the league was the Ottawa Nationals who only lost 1 regular season game and entered the League Tournament as the #1 seed. The Nationals had to work for everything the last weekend ultimately beating the host team KW Lightning in the Gold Medal Game 61-49. The Bronze Medal was won by the North Toronto Huskies who beat the London Ramblers 57-39.
During the season feedback was sought from the JUEL Coaches, Players, parents, University and College Coaches and anyone who had anything to offer in efforts to improve. Some of the suggestions will be put in place for the 2012 season and beyond. |
