| BOUNCE MAGAZINE: Doing it danish style |
| Monday, 02 October 2006 00:00 | |
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It’s GAM3 Day in Copenhagen, the capitol of Denmark, and every ballplayer in the country knows what’s taking place at the Town Hall Square. It’s the biggest and most popular streetball event in Denmark – The GAM3 (pronounced Game) tournament, featuring 86 teams and about 400 players ranging from beginners to national team members. VERBALS CHRISTIAN VINTHER Denmark is a small Scandinavian country with 5.5 million inhabitants just north of Germany. We’re mostly known for Hans Christian Andersen, who among other things wrote The little mermaid, made famous by the Disney movie. Basketball is a small sport here, with about 12,000 registered players. Our most famous player here is Christian Drejer, a 6´9” swingman. He was considered an NBA lottery pick out of high school, but chose to plat college ball for Florida instead. In ´04 he was selected by the New Jersey Nets in the second round but never suite dup. He’s now a pro for Virtus Bologna in Italy, the same club Manu Ginobili played for before joining the Spurs. Danish basketball is mostly played indoors, with everything organized in clubs. It’s team-oriented with a lot of passing. The top of the league is the semi-pro Basketligaen, where most teams typically have two Americans just out of college. In the summertime, however, a lot of players come outside. And the best come to the GAM3 Finals. GAM3 was founded in ´02 by the two young Danes, Simon Prahm and Martin Schultz, plus American basketball entrepeneur George M. Goldsmith. They noticed that while Copenhagen is a multicultural city, the basketball clubs were primarily white. Inspired by Holcombe Rucker, they founded GAM3 to reach ethnic youth and integrate then into the Danish club system and the society at large. Local GAM3 zones were established first in the ghettos in Copenhagen, and are now spread throughout disanvanted areas of the country. GAM3 arranges weekly outdoor practices for kids under 18 from May to August. In July there are one-day camps led by NBA and WNBA (Francisco Elson and Andrea Stinson participated this year). All participants who sign up as members recieve a free basketball – more than 1,800 balls have been distributed to kids in housing projects. The summer activities culminate with the GAM3 finals. This year saw the introduction of full-court 5-on-5 games in the elite categories, which raised the intensity and the dunking action. There also was a cash prize of $1,800 in U.S. funds in the elite categories. You need cash to bring out the best competition since most of the players in Denmark are amateurs. The two-time reigning champs were Schemeteam, sponsored by a local streetwear company. They usually have national team players, and their backbone is Peter ”Baby Shaq” Johansen. Although three of their players were out from last year, Schemeteam won their third straight elite championship. Another featured player of the tournament has been playing streetball more or less since he started walking. With ”true baller” tattooed in his right arm, Sandy Lundberg is the spirit of Danish streetball. He’s lived most of his life near Denmark’s sacred basketball playground, Israels Plads. His body is tattooed with differing statements and a poem letting people know he’s a believer. His leaping ability earned him the ’03 slam dunk championship. In this year’s dunk contest, Sandy’s hops weren’t at their normal level, and he didn’t make it past the first round. A Houston-born guy named Jeffrey, who’s about 6’ tall, made it to the finals against Kasper, another 6-footer. Kasper didn’t miss a dunk and pulled of a perfect windmill to win the title. After a short celebration, the crowd turned its attention to Houston rapper Devin the Dude on stage, who ended the day in perfect chillin’ style. Read article as JPG p.58 (.jpg, 169kb) Read article as JPG p.59 (.jpg, 82kb) |
