Temiskaming Thunder: Season Three — Growing the Game Across the North

Nov 5, 2025

9 min read

Updated: 19 hours ago

As Temiskaming Thunder wraps up its third official season, it’s pretty wild to look back at how much this little basketball club has grown.

What started as a grassroots idea between a small group of volunteers has turned into a basketball community that stretches across the Temiskaming district different towns, different schools, different age groups and, because this is Northern Ontario, a whole lot of kilometres on Highway 11.

Our athletes come from Kirkland Lake, Kenabeek, Englehart, New Liskeard, Haileybury, Latchford and communities in between. This season alone, our players represent four local high schools: Englehart High School (EHS), Timiskaming District Secondary School (TDSS), École secondaire catholique Sainte-Marie (ESCSM) and Kirkland Lake District Composite School (KLDCS).

That reach is something we’re really proud of.

It’s also why, from the beginning, we made a commitment to keep Thunder programming in both Englehart and New Liskeard. When you live in the North, getting to a gym can already mean a decent drive. Families shouldn’t have to add another hour to it every night just to access basketball.

Accessibility has never just meant registration fees to us. It means where we practice, how often families have to travel, what programs we offer and finding ways to make sure more kids have an opportunity to play.

Four Rep Teams. One Club.

This season, Thunder is proud to field four competitive rep teams:

Our teams compete in Ontario Basketball Association events, travel tournaments and competitive games across Northern Ontario and Western Quebec. And this past season gave us a pretty special reminder of just how far our rep program has come.

Three of our four rep teams brought home medals from the Ontario Cup Provincial Championships. Our U16 Girls earned silver, while both the U19 Girls and U15 Boys finished with bronze. Even more special, this marked the third consecutive year that at least one Temiskaming Thunder team has medalled at Provincials.

For a small Northern Ontario club competing against programs from across the province, that is something we are incredibly proud of.

But the medals are only one piece of it. Thunder Rep has never just been about the final score.

It’s the practices nobody sees. The first tournament nerves. Learning how to be coached and how to be a teammate. The long drives, hotel weekends, early mornings, big wins, tough losses and everything that happens somewhere in between.

We absolutely want our athletes to compete and see how far they can push themselves. We also want them leaving Thunder more confident, more resilient and with a whole collection of stories they’ll probably still be telling years from now.

Those are usually the parts the kids remember anyway.

Where It Starts: Thunder Youth Development League

Rep basketball might be where people see Thunder most often, but our Youth Development League is just as important to what we’re building. Because before there is a rep player, there has to be a kid who gets a basketball in their hands and decides they actually like this game.

Our Youth Development League gives younger athletes (grade 1-grade 8) a place to start without needing previous experience or committing to a competitive travel season. It is meant to be fun, welcoming and accessible while still teaching the fundamentals properly.

Dribbling. Passing. Shooting. Footwork. Defence. Learning the rules. Learning how to play with teammates. And, occasionally, learning that five kids cannot all chase the basketball at the exact same time.

Mostly, we just want kids leaving the gym excited to come back. And not every athlete who enters our Youth Development League is trying to become a rep player. That isn’t the goal.

Some are touching a basketball for the first time. Some already play at school and want more gym time. Some will eventually try out for Thunder Rep. Some will keep playing recreationally. Some might end up coaching the next generation years from now.

There is room for all of them.

Our development programming also allows us to introduce basketball to kids in both Englehart and New Liskeard, continuing the commitment we made when Thunder started that access to our club shouldn’t depend on which end of the district you happen to live in.

If we want stronger school teams, stronger rep programs and more kids playing basketball in this region five or ten years from now, this is where that work starts. Not at Ontario Cup. In a local gym with a kid learning to dribble.

What Does a Thunder Rep Season Actually Include?

A Thunder rep season includes weekly practices, competitive games throughout Northern Ontario and surrounding regions, 2–3 travel tournaments, OBA registration and insurance, uniforms, tournament fees, certified coaching and a Thunder player apparel package that includes brands like Lululemon and Under Armour.

Registration is $650 per athlete, covering the majority of what it costs to participate in a full competitive season.

And keeping that number as low as we possibly can is very intentional.

Our Sponsors Are Our Community

It would be impossible to tell the Thunder story without talking about our sponsors and community partners.

One of the things we are probably most proud of is that the businesses standing behind Thunder are overwhelmingly local businesses.

They aren’t faceless companies from somewhere hundreds of kilometres away. They are our neighbours. They are parents sitting in the stands. Families we grew up with. People we run into at the grocery store. Businesses we shop at. Friends, coaches and community members who have decided that creating opportunities for local kids is worth investing in.

That means a lot to us.

Thunder is still a grassroots, volunteer-run basketball club. There isn’t some huge organization sitting behind the scenes covering the difference when something costs more than expected. So when a local business chooses to support Thunder, that money genuinely changes what we are able to offer.

It helps us keep registration fees down. It buys basketballs and equipment. It helps cover tournaments, uniforms, referees, gym costs, coaching development and all of those little expenses that become very big ones when you’re trying to run youth sport in Northern Ontario.

And sometimes the impact is even more direct.

This season, 13 Thunder athletes received financial support toward their registration through grant programs made possible by Tato Recruiting and Miller Realty. That is 13 kids who get to travel with their teammates, put on a Thunder jersey and play competitive basketball with less financial pressure placed on their families.

Read the story of how Tato Recruiting and Miller Realty helped 13 Thunder athletes take the court.

But our community support goes far beyond traditional sponsorship too.

District School Board Ontario North East (DSB1) and the Conseil scolaire catholique des Grandes Rivières (CSCDGR) continue to open their school facilities to our athletes and give us places to practice, develop and compete.

Northern College has also supported our programming through access to its facilities — something that matters enormously in a region where quality gym time is at a premium.

There are also people like Sue Nielson from The Temiskaming Speaker, who has continued to cover local sport and help tell the stories of the athletes growing up in these gyms.

And then there is Laura Seguin, who somehow manages to make Thunder look even better than it feels in real life. Laura gives her time and talent to our program, coming into gyms and events to photograph our athletes completely free of charge. So many of the moments families get to keep — the game faces, celebrations, team photos, hugs, medals and everything in between — exist because Laura showed up with her camera.

And a very special thank you has to go to the custodians and facilities staff who take care of those gyms behind the scenes. We walk into clean, safe and honestly pretty flawless facilities week after week, often at night and on weekends, and we know that does not just magically happen. They are there opening doors, setting things up, cleaning up after hundreds of athletes and families and making sure the spaces are ready for us the next time we come back. They might not be standing on the sidelines, but they are absolutely part of what makes Thunder possible — and we are incredibly grateful for them.

Those things matter.

They bring this program to life.

That is what community partnership looks like to us.

Of course we are incredibly proud to put local logos on our website, warmups, tournament banners and social media. But the real value has never been the logo. It is knowing there are people in our own community saying, we believe in this too. Our sponsors and partners are helping us prove that kids from small Northern Ontario communities deserve big opportunities without always having to leave home to find them.

We will never take that support for granted.

Meet the local businesses and community partners behind Temiskaming Thunder.

Thunder x Lululemon

Season three also brought another first for the club. Temiskaming Thunder was selected to join the Lululemon Team Program, creating an opportunity to provide our athletes with high-quality training and travel apparel as part of their Thunder experience. The partnership has also allowed us to keep another piece of the program local, with embroidery handled by Head to Toe Sportswear in Haileybury and Thunder fanwear available through New Liskeard Source for Sports. It might seem like a small detail compared to everything happening on the court, but there is something pretty great about watching a group of Northern Ontario kids walk into a tournament looking and feeling like they belong there.

Because they do.

Basketball Takes Over Downtown: Our Annual 3-on-3 Tournament

One of the coolest things to come out of Thunder actually takes us completely outside the gym. Each summer, in partnership with the Downtown New Liskeard BIA, we take basketball right into the middle of Downtown New Liskeard for our annual Thunder 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament.

What started as a way to bring basketball into the Downtown Block Party has very quickly become one of our favourite days of the year. And year two made it pretty clear this thing is sticking around.

Our second annual tournament welcomed 23 teams and 92 players for a full day of outdoor basketball, with players travelling from Rouyn, Timmins, North Bay, Kirkland Lake and communities throughout the region to join our own local athletes.

For one day, downtown basically becomes one giant basketball gym. Kids play against people they have never met. Former teammates end up back on the same court. Parents set up chairs along the sidelines. Music is playing. People walking through the Block Party stop to watch one game and somehow end up staying for three.

And all around it, people are eating at local restaurants, visiting vendors, shopping downtown and experiencing our community.

The tournament has also become something much more meaningful to us. It is held in memory of George “Jim” Goldsack, and carrying his name into an event built around kids, basketball and community makes the day that much more special.

It is one of those events that somehow feels very Thunder — competitive, a little chaotic, full of people and rooted in community. There is also a pretty cool full-circle piece to it.

A basketball club supported overwhelmingly by local businesses gets to turn around and create an event that brings players and families from across Northern Ontario and Western Quebec into our downtown core and supports those same kinds of local businesses.

That is exactly the kind of relationship we want Thunder to have with this community.

Read about the Second Annual Temiskaming Thunder x Downtown New Liskeard BIA 3-on-3 Tournament.

The Only Canada Basketball Verified Program in Northeastern Ontario

Temiskaming Thunder is incredibly proud to remain the only Canada Basketball Verified Club in Northeastern Ontario.

For us, that matters far beyond having another logo beside our name. Canada Basketball Verification recognizes clubs that meet national standards around Safe Sport, inclusive programming, coaching, athlete development and organizational governance. In other words, it helps make sure the basketball program we are building in Temiskaming isn't just growing — it’s being built properly. Kids in Northern Ontario deserve access to the same standards of coaching, safety and development as athletes anywhere else in the province. Being able to provide that right here at home is something we take seriously.

Proudly OBA Certified

Thunder is also an Ontario Basketball Association Certified Club, connecting our athletes directly into Ontario’s provincial basketball system. Our rep teams compete against OBA programs from across the province, giving Northern athletes opportunities to experience different levels of competition, test themselves outside our region and continue developing without having to leave home to find meaningful basketball. For a club that was only an idea a few years ago, seeing TEMISKAMING on the schedule alongside established programs from across Ontario still feels pretty cool.

Still Growing

Season three isn't really about Thunder becoming bigger just for the sake of being bigger.

It’s about creating more opportunities.

More little kids getting their first basketball.

More teenagers having somewhere to keep playing after their school season ends.

More local coaches getting involved.

More families meeting each other in gyms.

More local businesses backing local kids.

More athletes getting challenged.

And more kids from Englehart, New Liskeard, Haileybury, Latchford, Kirkland Lake and everywhere in between getting the chance to see where basketball can take them.

None of it happens without the coaches who volunteer their nights and weekends, the parents who spend an unbelievable number of hours driving up and down Highway 11, the schools and facilities that open their doors, the custodians who keep those gyms ready for us, the businesses and families who invest in our athletes and, most importantly, the kids who keep walking through the gym doors. Three seasons in, there is still a lot we want to build.

But looking around at what this community has already helped create?

We think we're off to a pretty good start.

Hear the Thunder. ⚡