'I got dunked on by a guy wearing a turban'

How success, access and representation combined to form the 'perfect storm' that's led the Indo-Canadian community to the forefront of basketball in B.C.

What started 35 years ago as two groups of friends that hated each other has evolved into annual moment of community unification, melded by a common denominator: basketball. 

The IndoHoop Canada National Tournament started in the mid-80s at the Gurudwara on Marine Drive in Vancouver, organized by two of the driving forces behind the 4-on-4 Dolphin Basketball Classic, Bira Bindra and Taj Johal.

Last year, it was held at the Langley Events Centre, pulling in 40 teams over five different divisions. 

"For three days," said Sim Sahi, who's helped run the tournament since 1994, "the LEC was just rocking. It wasn't even standing-room only — you couldn't even find a spot to sit on the floor. You know how you see Rucker Park, with everyone around the court? It was exactly like that." 

Sahi remembers pulling up to the court at the Sikh temple in 1989 for one of the first tournaments as a Grade 8 kid, swaggering into the tiny, cold gym with wooden backboards. 

"I was thinking I was hot stuff because we just won the city championship," he said, laughing at the memory. 

"So I thought I was The Man, right? You walk in, I was like, 'Oh, who's this uncle? I'm gonna school this guy. This guy looks like my dad.'

"Then I got dunked on by this guy wearing a turban. He just came and dunked on my head ... just took the life out of me. But that's the first time was are exposed to it — our community playing — and I just loved it."

The tournament, which runs on the May long weekend, is back at the LEC this year, and could see as many as 50 teams across all the divisions. 

But the event's longevity and popularity is an extension of the sociological makeover of B.C., and specifically the Lower Mainland. As the Indo-Canadian population has soared here, its love for basketball has, too.

South Asians first trickled into the region in 1897, when a contingent of Sikh soldiers — part of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee parade — remained behind in Vancouver. A few years later, the first large wave of Indian immigrants arrived onboard the liner the Empress of India, beginning the buildup of one of the largest communities of expat Indians in the world.

Now, more than half of Metro Vancouver's population now a visible minority, and the immigration stream from India remains strong. 

Aman Heran was one of those. Born in the Ludhiana, Punjab, he came to Canada as a five-year-old. A decade later, he was one of the best players in the province. He knew of others, like Navi Sekhon, Pasha Bains, and Sean Ramjagsingh, but had never seen them in person, until he — like Sahi — showed up at the IndoHoops tournament with a team made up of his high school buddies. 

“I started to get better, and I started getting some notoriety ... but I'd never actually seen Nav play. Or even (European pro player) Rick Gill for that matter,” said Heran. “It didn't really necessarily happen until I started playing in our Indo-Pak tournaments ... That's kind of when it hit me. I go there. And now you're like, ‘Oh, damn, there's some dudes that can just play.’ Navi Sekhon being one. I didn't even know of Rammer; I didn't even know about Sean until he's at the tournament, and I was like, 'What the hell? This guy's a seven-footer?

“Locally you did it for being known. If you won, you were top dog for that year, right? Whether it was me winning an MVP or Navi winning it or Pasha winning it, it came down to these like three or four teams and we would just battle.”

They even teamed up, too, taking a touring team to India with the likes of Bains, Heran, Gill, and Andy Heer. Their goal was to get the Indian government to allow expats to play for the national team, and having players with Div. 1 NCAA and pro experience was a good way to do it. Heran was offered a spot on the team if he returned to India, but declined. 

And there were others. Manroop Claire, Sukhjot Bains, Shami Gill, Sukhman Sandhu and Surinder Grewal are just a few notable brown ballers from B.C. to star at the university level. 

There are players that predate Sekhon, Bains and Heran, said Dylan Kular, president of the Vancouver Bandits — the only pro basketball team in B.C. 

"There were pioneers before to Pasha and Aman who played at the highest level, but down in the States," he said. "It's just the storytelling didn't exist back then or you can't find those stories anymore."

But they laid the groundwork. Heran and Bains have beaten the path down even more, and started two of the longest-running high performance clubs in the Lower Mainland — DRIVE and AthElite, respectively. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZdaYwcC-1k

On the women's side, Harleen Dulay (née: Sidhu) was the first woman of South Asian descent to play in the NCAA, playing for the University of Nebraska.

Harleen, whose story was related in a TV documentary, Press Breaker, is now a nurse and helped start XV Training Academy with her husband Manny Dulay — himself a renowned three-point shooter in his university days. 

"It's so cool to see how many girls play the sport and how many of them excel in high school and go on to play afterwards, because it wasn't like that when I was playing," said Harleen, who's taken a step back from basketball with two young children as well as working. 

"So to see how much it's grown, see the interest level increase and to see these girls doing well, loving the sport and taking on those challenges ... is what keeps me going. 

"(Coaching) ultimately is what I wanted to do, even when I was in high school ... playing the sport and not seeing a whole lot of South Asian girls at the time, thinking 'You know what? I already know that I'm going to come back one day and I'm going to coach, to hopefully inspire generations to come.' 

"It's to hopefully inspire another kid to go on and play high school and then play afterwards. And it's maybe to be that figure for them that they can look up to to say, 'hey, look, she did it. I can do it too.'"

Harleen's rise as a player had a notable chapter in Grade 8, when she was banned from playing for the junior team because she'd played too many games with the senior squad. A media furor eventually caused B.C. high school sports to back down and let her play. 

Now there's another young talent on the rise, mirroring her own journey. 

Johnston Heights Grade 8 Puneet Deal also plays with her senior team, and was ranked in the top 10 of ESPN's class of 2028. For perspective, no other B.C. high school player — male or female — has ever ranked in the top 10 at any time. That includes two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash, and fellow NBAers Rob Sacre and Kelly Olynyk. 

"I'm just most excited for the growth of the women's game. That's what makes me so proud," said Sahi. "Traditionally as a community, the stereotypes is the woman stays home, cooks and cleans and doesn't do anything. But it's that trend has reversed. I think we're making up for past generations of holding females back. And we're working so hard to make sure that we put our daughters in the forefront." 

Harleen's father, Jay (Jagjit), might have been the first Indo-Canadian to play in the B.C. provincial championship when he took to the court as a lanky, 6-foot-5 turban-wearing forward in the early '80s with North Surrey Secondary. 

He came to B.C. from Punjab (via New Delhi) when he was eight years old in 1972, and was blown away by the natural beauty of the area. When he and his two brothers stepped off the plane at the airport, they had a moment that foreshadowed NBA player Othella Harrington's arrival in Vancouver decades later. 

"We came through England and my aunt said 'It's always cold in Vancouver,'" he said, laughing. "So she bought us three boys these thick winter jackets. The ones with the fur on the hood ... so we're wearing those in August when we landed. And my dad looked at us — and he was already here for two years before — he looked at us like 'what are you doing??'"

(Harrington infamously disembarked his plane in Vancouver after being traded to the Grizzlies in 1999 in a fur coat, fully expecting to see igloos and blizzards) 

His family settled Whalley and began their new lives. Outside of the school, they did experience some racism — broken windows and slurs — but Sidhu's father, a 17-year-old military veteran, wasn't going to budge.

But in school, even when he was the only one wearing a turban, Sidhu said his experience was almost entirely positive, and that extended to his time on the court as well. 

"I had some great coaches at eight. The principal was phenomenal. He would not, you know, he wouldn't tolerate any kind of racism in the school. He was that kind of guy," he said. "This is the odd part, and I reflect on this a lot. I never felt any kind of racism on the teams. I'd never really had any experiences with racism at North Surrey secondary. Once again, great principal, teachers and coaches, all supportive basketball. The one guy who did was racist was also an equal opportunity bully and picked on lots of different kids."

Years later, it was the same for Harleen, as she faced little of that, even when travelling to face other schools. After graduation, when she went south to Nebraska, a heartland state with 87 per cent white population, the worst reaction she got was one of bafflement. 

"People did get confused about where I was from," she laughed. "'Are you from down south or you from Mexico?' And so when I would tell them that I was from Canada, they were just completely shocked. They're like, 'what are you?'

"Very nice people out there in Lincoln, Nebraska, that's for sure. And if you play sports, they love you."

It might be that acceptance within the sport which has made it so embraced by the Indo-Canadian community in B.C. 

They joke about it being the most affordable sport, and indoors away from the rain, but the sport is an equalizer. Like the experience of Jay and his daughter, the prejudice that has infiltrated life outside the court hasn't completely penetrated inside of it. 

"If you look at the gatekeepers of basketball who are predominantly white over the last 50, 60 years in B.C., they love basketball," said Sahi. "And all my coaches, when I played basketball, they were all white back in the '80s, they love me. If they saw something in you, they'd pour their time and energy into you.

"In basketball, I think we get recognized. We feel like we're part of the community, whereas other sports — especially hockey — we feel like we're outsiders.

"Basketball is all just about basketball. There's just something different. The soul of basketball is different from any other sport, man. 

"I can watch some Larry Bird mixtape right now, and I would ***ing get goosebumps. Because it's basketball. (Race) doesn't matter. I think because we had success and we have representation, everything's kind of led to a perfect storm where we are right now."