Registration is OPEN - 2024-25 Season
Hello Rockets Family!
We are excited to have opened our Fall/Winter Registration for 2024-25. http://
We are full for most groups, but there are still a few spots left.
We always try to accomidate waitlisted athletes, and will work with other clubs to make sure that all kids get to play.
Fall/Winter Season:
Jr.NBA this season will have a 12-week session starting early September through to Christmas, as well as a second Jr NBA Season between January and March. Current registration is for The Fall season, so with their season will open for registration in November. We hope to have enough registrations to have a girls only group at 4:00 p.m. on Sundays. We will look to bring in some female junior coaches to help out as well. Jr NBA is designed for kids aged five to seven looking for that once a week beginner / intro experience.
Athletes in Junior NBA will receive the junior NBA Canada package of a reversible Jersey, a basketball and some other swag the Rockets throw in. The kids will play once a week either on Sunday nights at East Dartmouth Community Center or Fridays at Colonial John Stuart Elementary. The kids have a lot of fun being active and learning some basics with Coach Anthony Brown. We are a registered program with basketball Canada and follow their guidance on curriculum for the children.
For Club Basketball Teams, we aim to start placements 3rd week of September for U10, U12 and U14. The older groups will start two weeks later as their season starts 2 weeks later.
We have set up registration to offer a few ways to pay. Kidsport and Jumpstart are always options, just complete your application online and share your application number with your Rockets Registration at Checkout. We have EMT as well as CC payment options, in-person payments can be arranged if necessary by our Treasurer. We offer a Split Payment option via Credit Card - where you only have to pay a portion when you register to grab your spot now, then you will automatically be charged the rest in in September. This is the default setting when paying by CC, you can opt to pay it all at once as well via CC.
Age groups this season are the following:
2022/2023 Fall and Winter Basketball Season. Club Season Fee's are $440/Player
- U10/Junior Mini - 9 years or under on Dec 31, 2024 (Near Full)
- U12/Mini - 11 years or under on Dec 31, 2024 (Full)
- U14/Bantam - 13 years or under on Dec 31, 2024 (Full)
- U16/Midget - 15 years or under on Dec 31, 2024 (Near Full)
- U18/Juvenile - 17 years or under on Dec 31, 2024 (Near Full)
We are fighting to keep our fees as low as possible, but with rising costs everywhere we have seen a bump in registration fees this year to $440 for Club and $195 for Jr NBA
Please remember - with the Rockets - your Registration fee includes the rental of your club jersey for the season, all games and playoffs within the Metro Basketball Association League scheduled games and playoffs, and your practices. D1/D2 (AAA/AA) teams may incur additional costs for extra (3rd) training sessions if your coach chooses to. Most teams will pick up extra games via exhibition or tournaments, including BNS Provincials - all of these events will carry additional fees and will be clearly communicated to parents from your Head Coach or Team manager during the season.
Each year our club does various fundraising events, our online club 50/50s provide families a chance to earn a commission to use towards future registrations by simply sharing a custom link from raffle box.
Each year we have a merchandise order which will open for placements/balancing begin.
Some things we can tell you:
- We don't know what nights of the week your child will practice until we assign them to a coach and the coach settles on practice slots. Teams will aim to practice twice a week. Elementary age kids will practice starting at 5:30 or 6:00 p.m. in most cases. Junior High kids typically start practice at 7:30 to 8:00. High school kids typically start at 8 or 9pm. Practice duration of varies from an 1 to 2 hours depending on the age group and facility.
- U10 and under 12 teams we'll play games on Saturdays somewheres in HRM versus other teams their skill level. Our club does not schedule those games, mbans.ca schedules those games and we do not have influence on time of day or location.
- U14-16-18 teams will play on Sundays.
- Games for U10-12-14 typically start the last weekend of October. Older group start 2 weeks later to better align with high school basketball tryouts. Games will pause over the Christmas holiday. They will pick back up in January. Younger groups and in February. Older groups go for an extra two weeks.
- We run a large club and everyone tries out for every team. Each year we run balancing over a two to three week period and each athlete will get the opportunity to be in three to five placement sessions depending on how large their group is. We will rework the groups each week, and we have a place for every athlete to play - D1 all the way through to D10 in some groups. It's important for athletes who are beginners or Advanced to understand that the first week of placements typically have a wide variety of experienced athletes in each group. Beginners can be intimidated if they have a couple Advanced athletes in their group, it's important to keep all this in mind.
- No teams are predetermined before balancing, all athletes have to try out. The balancing process is like an interview, regardless of the athletes resume they still have to nail the interview in order to get the job. So just because an athlete played on a high performance team in a previous season doesn't mean they will automatically play on one this season without performing through the placement sessions.
- Your experience with our club will be dependent on your family's participation in the athletes Journey. If you help your team fundraise, support the coach and get to know them early, volunteer if you can and encourage and reward effort over results - you will have an amazing experience.
- Your coach is a volunteer, the people that run the Rockets are volunteers, the officials are under trained. Our program is designed to provide opportunity to play the sport and does not guarantee world-class training. We feel we do a great job but have no expectations that we are perfect. Our volunteer coaches spend their time and money providing your kids an opportunity to play - and we are so grateful for their service.
Spaces are limited at the Rockets simply because we cannot find more gyms to take on more teams. Please register early and know that your registration is not locked in until an initial payment is made.
We are excited to provide another exciting season of basketball for both the athletes and the parents.
