Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
It's Haines versus Klukwan (it's
POW
on their jerseys, meaning Prince of Wales Island
with players from Craig, Hydaburg but mostly Klukwan) in the playoffs Friday afternoon.
I'm sitting in the Haines section of the bleachers, and if I want to live I'm rooting for
Haines. I root for Haines, loudly, but Haines is up against three Edenshaws and that, ac-
cording to Eric, is always trouble. Klawock's Sid Edenshaw is like a redwood tree with
feet. He stumps down the court and roots himself under the basket and woe betide the
point guard who thinks to go up after his own rebound. Ouch. Another Klawock Eden-
shaw, Devin, is shorter and slighter but he has eyes like an eagle and the hands to back
them up. He scored four three-pointers in what seemed like the first sixty seconds of the
game and went on to shoot 47 game points total. Klawock won, 87-77. Go figure.
The color commentary is all in the bleachers. After one player dribbled left, dribbled
right, faked right, faked left and finally passed out of bounds—“I guess he just ran out of
ideas.” Irene's brother, David, on the inadvisability of giving up your seat to use the
ladies' room—“Better bring a coffee can.” When a foul is called for grabbing—“He just
fell on you, ref, he's tired!” When a player swears on the court—“What did he say? Did
he say darn?” When a defensive foul is called—“Gosh, he was just standing there.”
Also—“They're missing some players, herring season just opened in Sitka.” Bet the Gold
Medal's the only basketball tournament you hear that.
There is also, I may say, a lot of snickering. This is family and lifelong friends watch-
ing, no player is going to get away with anything on this court. “His mother was my
grandmother's sister,” is how one relationship is explained to me.
I think every living person in Huna is there on Saturday night and they all cheer like
they've got money on the game. It's one long earthquake when, I'm sorry to report, the
Edenshaw magic is derailed by Huna (when you look it up in your atlas, Rand McNally
spells it Hoonah but it's Huna on their red-and-black uniforms). Huna is led by power for-
ward Nate Strong, who hurtles down the court like a cannonball and is about as stoppable.
This guy does everything, shoots, passes, and scores, scores, scores, and he's backed up
by a team that gives the word “team” a whole new level of meaning. There is some very
nice running of plays with a lot of fakes that work, fancy behind-the-back passing and
through-the-knees dribbling. There is also extensive use of towels to mop up the sweat on
