A major tourist attraction built around the world's oldest surviving basketball court could open in St. Stephen within five years, says David Ganong with Canada 1st Basketball Inc.
      The group plans to launch the second phase of its fundraising campaign at the end of this month, according to Ganong, the retired chief executive officer of Ganong Bros. Ltd., now volunteering as special advisor to the board of Canada 1st Basketball.
      Building "Canada's National Basketball Experience Museum," including a three story addition abutting the brick structure on lower King Street where the St. Stephen YMCA made its home in the 1890s, could cost $18 million, including the $1.1 million already raised, Ganong says.
      Lyman Walker Archibald played in the world's first basketball game in Springfield, Mass., where James Naismith from Ontario invented the game in 1891. An old newspaper account says Archibald organized the first basketball game at the St. Stephen YMCA on October 17, 1893.
      "Basketball was played quite differently back in those days," says Ganong, adding, "In those days you didn't dribble it, either. You just hand held it and threw it." Ganong calls the game an extremely accessible sport for families -- requiring only ball and hoop.
      St. Stephen does not claim that the first basketball game in the world or even Canada took place here but that it has the oldest basketball court still existing. The YMCA closed in St. Stephen in 1897, and the building housed other businesses and groups over the years, most recently the Wood & Wardrobe thrift store.
      Fire damaged, but did not destroy, the building in 2012, leading to a community effort to save it, now led by Canada 1st Basketball Inc. The group used the money raised to date to buy and secure the property plus the building next door to make room the for the new structure. The group engaged CambridgeSeven from Cambridge, Mass., which, Ganong says, "has done most of the major interactive sports facilities in North America, so it clearly is the best people for us to work with."
      "We're not calling this a museum. A little piece of it will be a museum, but most of it is going to be an interactive sports facility," Ganong says. It will include a 50 seat theatre where visitors will be able to watch a video on basketball and a bit of local history before starting their tour. Plans call for a "sky box" where people could watch Toronto Raptors games, for example. The roof of the three story new part will extend partway over the two story old structure, creating a covered patio with a commanding view over the St. Croix River towards Calais.
      Canada's National Basketball Experience Museum should work with the Garcelon Civic Center and the Chocolate Museum to bring visitors to St. Stephen. The theatre, sky box and other facilities would be available to rent for functions, "so there's an economic benefit, there's a community benefit, that is being built into what we are doing."
      Canada Basketball has agreed to place one third of the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame in this facility in St. Stephen. "That's a big break for us," Ganong says. He hopes that the Garcelon Civic Center can acquire covering for the ice surface, allowing visiting teams to play basketball. He envisions members of the Toronto Raptors coming to St. Stephen and says the University of New Brunswick says it would play a game against the University of Maine in St. Stephen. The extra visitors could support more restaurants, he says.
      Detailed engineering will take a year and construction a year to a year and one half, Ganong says. "You need some professional people that are going to kind of rip some things down without hurting what the heritage is, so that's going to take some time," he says.
      Ganong estimates that the project could be completed by 2028 or, optimistically, 2027. "How quickly we can do that will depend a little bit on how rapidly we can raise the second round of money," he says.