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Phase 1, The Stony Plain Central
Years 1983 - 1985
The camp had its genesis at Stony Plain
Central School under the
coaching of Shalogne Kosakovich, a then Panda’s player who presently
teaches at Jasper Place High School, and Dave Cunney, a former referee
and teacher at Stony Plain Central School. That year there were eight
campers registered.
In its second year Shalogne returned to
coach together with Gerry Cousins and once again SPC hosted the camp.
In the third year Gerry Cousins returned and
brought along Dave Youngs as an up and coming new coach.
Phase 2, The Memorial Years 1986 -
2007
In 1986 the camp had to move to Memorial
Composite High School and
for the next two years Gerry Cousins and Dave Youngs continued coaching
the camp.
In 1988 Neil Ogelstone(teacher and
basketball coach at Memorial) became the camp director and Dave Youngs
became the head coach.
During this time the camp became known as
the Memorial Basketball
Camp and as its popularity grew more gym space was required to
accommodate the growing demand for skill development.
Also, during this time the camp was
organized into its present
format of INTORDUCTORY LEVEL (Grade 2-4), JUNIOR LEVEL (Grade 4-7),
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL (Grade 6-8), SENIOR LEVEL (Grade 8-9) and ADVANCED
LEVE (Grade 10-12).
Phase 3, The Rockets 2008 - Present
Summer Camp '07 was Neil Ogelstone’s last
year as camp director.
He turned the directorship over to Roc Weigl and Stony Plain
Baptist Church. That being the case, there was no longer a
staff
member of Memorial as part of the camp, so they were told it could not
be called the Memorial Camp anymore. So began the "Rockets."
For these four years, Roc got his feet under him organizing
the
summer basketball camp. Roc, along with good friend and
fellow
coach Tony Cherfan, saw the growing interest in basketball in this
community and began to expand the program to Fall skills camps, Spring
skills camps, Spring League teams and hosting the Rim Rocker
Tournaments!
Up to this point, due to the fact that Neil
Oglestone was the director of the camp (a teacher and coach at
Memorial), the gym usage was free
in order to give the kids in this community the best chance of
attending a great camp for little money! Neil did a fantastic
job
of growing the basketball program!
In 2011, Roc decided that it was time
for a younger generation to start taking over the Rockets, and
therefore started to get his son Rocky involved in a greater capacity,
with the intention of him taking over all duties at some point.
While Rocky was learning the ropes, gym space was becoming
harder
and harder to come by in the summer.
Summer
2013 came with many new challenges. This was the first year that
we were not approved for gym space in the Stony Plain gyms for the
week. Unsure of the reason for the change, we scrambled to find
another place for the camp. The TriLeisure Centre in
Spruce
Grove had the exact timeframe open on the South Field that would be
good enough for 2 of the groups, along with half the gym for the Intro
Camp! With the generosity of Living Waters and St.
Matthews, the camp still had a place to work in this community!
All we can do is not get
discouraged
and keep trying to give the kids of this community a chance to play
basketball.
For 6 years now we have used the Tri Leisure Centre and Living
Waters Christian Academy for summer camp, and it has been great!
The future of the "Rockets" skills camp
is
uncertain, but year by year we will continue to give kids the
opportunity to learn, play and be part of a team in the sport of
basketball.
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