Professional basketball in Grande Prairie?

Believe it.

The Oakland County Cowboys of the American Basketball Association are relocating to Grande Prairie for the 2013-2014 season, according to Cowboys owner Giovanni Rogers.

The semi-pro league already has one Alberta team – the Calgary Crush. The Crush play in the Pacific Northwest Division. The Cowboys, who played in the Mid-Central Division this past season, will join the Crush in the Pacific Northwest.

The Pacific Northwest had nine teams in the 2012-2013 season – two from Alaska, five from Washington and one from Oregon, as well as the Crush.

The Crush are currently in the ABA playoffs and are the only undefeated team in the ABA. They posted a 12-0 record during the regular season and swept the San Diego Surf in the first round of the playoffs. They are awaiting a second-round opponent. Rogers said the success of the Crush was one of the main reasons for the move to Grande Prairie and a call to Crush owner Sal Rashidian precipitated the relocation.

“What he has been doing up there really inspired a few owners down here to ask ‘what are they doing up there?’ So I called Sal and got some information from him about marketing and whatnot and then we got together and looked at a couple of cities in Alberta, because Alberta has a pretty good financial climate,” said Rogers.

“It came down to Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie. Grande Prairie had everything for what I wanted to do. You have the facilities, you have a pretty good basketball crowd in that you have a rec league there, you have that college league (ACAC). We are looking a crowd of people that enjoys the sport of basketball. Most ABA owners try being somewhere where we can plant a seed, and Grande Prairie seemed like the best place to be able to do that and be successful.”

Although the Crush play in a city of more than 1,000,000 people, Rashidian said the prospect of playing in a city the size of Grande Prairie is appealing for many investors, because of its size.

“I think small markets work, because people don’t have much to do … and if you have got local players, then all their family and relatives come out and support them,” he said.

Finding the fan base is only part of the equation. Rashidian’s key to success involves structure, organization and an elite atmosphere.

“Not many ABA teams run their programs the way we do,” said Rashidian. “We a give first-class experience not only to our players, but to the teams that come to Calgary to play us. Some of the teams wanted to come back twice, but we only have so much availability. But we do things at a high level for the visiting teams and for our own players.”

Rashidian said he drew between 350-500 fans per game this season.

The Crush did even better for their playoff series last weekend.

“We had about 600 people there for Friday and about 450 on Saturday so we had over 1,000 people in two days,” said Rashidian.

The Crush play their home games at SAIT.

Rogers plans on flooring a roster of half and half, American and Canadian players. Tryouts will be in Grande Prairie in June and he said he already has a couple of commitments.

“One guy that played with the Dallas Mavericks about six years ago – Leon Smith – he’s going to be coming up to work out,” Rogers. “I also contacted a local guy (former Grande Prairie Regional College Wolves player) Khas Tokar and he is going to be coming to tryouts.

“Tryouts will be open, but with criteria. Players will have to have played college ball for at least one year to be able to try out. Tryouts will be a week-long process after which we will (identify) 15 players for our roster.”

He said that while the blueprint right now is for a half-and-half Canadian/American mix, there are no restrictions in that area. He is free to have as many – or as few – Canadians as he wants on his team.

“You never know, it could end up being (75%) Canadians – we just want to put together a good mix. We want to be able to offer players that the fans will have heard of, that they can relate to… but our thing is we want to put together the best possible basketball team,” said Rogers.

“In the ABA, we can have a team full of Canadians, or a team full of Americans. There are no restrictions, which is a good thing for the league.”

While most people would assume that automatically means a predominantly American team, fans don’t have to look too far to see that is not necessarily the case.

The Crush’s roster is 100% Canadian.

“Our program is one that gives student athletes a second chance at their dreams of making it to the next level – so that after ACAC (college) or CIS (Canadian university), they still have a chance to play,” said Rashidian.

Plans are to have the Grande Prairie team in place for the 2013-2014 season.

“The season will begin the second week of November,” said Rogers. “The players will be in town at the beginning of October – that’s when training camp will start.”

Rogers said one benefit of moving to Grande Prairie is that there is no need to change the team name.

“We will be sticking with the Cowboys name – we figure it’s positive with the Alberta people,” he said.

terry.farrell@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @dhtterry