Basketball in Canada Basketball in Canada Basketball in Canada dates back to the 20th century. The sport is played year-round by men and women and various levels of competition. Several professional basketball leagues have teams based in Canada. James Naismith, a Canadian who moved to the United States, invented basketball in Springfield, Massachusetts in the 1890s. This new sport soon became popular as an indoor sport that needed a minimal equipment, gaining popularity at high schools and colleges in Canada. In Canada, the sport has long lived in the shadow of ice hockey, but in the early 21st Century the sport saw a
YMCA YMCA in Springfield, Mass. in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a clergyman, educator and physician. Naismith was asked to create an indoor "athletic distraction" to keep rowdy youth busy in the cold New England winter months. Luther Gulick, the head of the Springfield Y, gave Naismith two weeks to come up with a game to occupy a particularly incorrigible group. Naismith decided the game had to be physically active, simple to understand and would have minimal physical roughness. The original game was played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets nailed to the balcony of the Springfield Y. The