Twenty days before tens of thousands of basketball players and fans take over downtown, Spokane Hoopfest 2013 organizers say businesses have struck a harmonious accord to unplug “Mosquitoes” – devices that emit a high-pitched whine to deter loitering by teens and young people. Property managers for three buildings that have devices right next to where courts will be say they’ve decided to turn them off during the June 29-30 outdoor three-on-three basketball tournament.
I visited some supposed villains this week. What I found instead was a family. This family – the owners of Evergreen State Towing, a company I myself have helped to demonize – paid a steep price for their supposed villainy. Their exoneration in court this month still leaves them a long way from where they were before they towed some 40 cars during Hoopfest 2010.
Josh Heytvelt may be a one-and-done kind of guy when it comes to Hoopfest, but he made it a good one. Heyvelt was the center of attention in front of nearly 2,000 spectators at center court on Sunday, scoring a team-high eight points as he and Douglass Properties teammates David Pendergraft, Brian Michaelson and Nik Raivio beat Red Monkey 20-11 in the men’s 6-foot-and-over elite division championship.
The parking lot at Main and Browne on Sunday morning was the place to rekindle high school basketball dreams. Teams of athletic 20-somethings, many of them former prep players, were fighting through the Hoopfest loser’s bracket, fighting for rebounds, fighting for survival.
