Pursuit is sports feature series highlighting athletes, coaches and staff and significant sporting events from North Bay and the surrounding area.
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Joey Puddister looked at his options and decided to take his talents to Portugal. The North Bay product has been playing professional basketball for the past two years with GDB Leca in the I Divisão Basquetebol league.
“The opportunity to play in Portugal came up just after the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Puddister. “My plan was to play in Sudbury in the National Basketball League of Canada (NBLC) but the season kept getting pushed back. I was looking for a place to play and that’s when Nipissing Lakers men's basketball head coach Thomas Cory told me he was going over at Christmas time and told me to come along and do some workouts with some teams. Cory has connections over there and played in Portugal for a time so I jumped at that and I ended up getting signed, stayed there the rest of the year, and was re-signed for this past year.”
Puddister played and lived in the city of Porto, a place he calls one of the most beautiful cities in the world. He adds there is a big difference in the lifestyle and culture in Portugal but it’s something he is fond of.
“I really love the lifestyle, the Portuguese culture and the people. I was lucky getting to play in Porto which is right on the ocean,” says Puddister.
“We had a great team, with great teammates and the organization was great. Everyone was really helpful and really cared about the players as individuals which isn’t always the case in overseas basketball.”
This isn’t Puddister’s first trip through professional basketball in Europe.
“I’ve been bouncing around over the last seven years between Canada, the USA and in Europe. I played in Holland a few years ago, before coming back to North America. It’s a big range of skill level and size between different leagues in Europe and the gameplay itself is different as well,” he says.
“It's a lot more team-oriented, longer possessions, when you’re running a set play there is a lot of strategy and less reliance on one-on-one and pure athleticism. In Canada and the USA there are guys who are just so naturally gifted and can make all the difference in one play.”
Puddister says the learning curve wasn’t as big this past season. “It wasn’t too much of an adjustment for me because I was used to playing that style having played in Europe before and this being my second year with this team.”
Puddister made some headlines recently as one of the recipients of a contest that saw Leon’s national team up with the Toronto Raptors to produce coffee tables out of the custom-designed 1995-style hardcourt on which the ‘95 Rewind games were played.
“It’s the coolest thing I own for sure,” says Puddister. The coffee tables come with an authentication certificate and a court map identifying exactly what part of the court the winners have been given. In fact, according to a release by Leon’s, many of the tables have gameday scuffs and marks. “It’s super cool to have, I have it stashed in my closet right now because I don’t want to ruin it. I'm in the process of buying my first house and so I’m waiting until that happens before I put it out.”
Puddister says he wasn’t told exactly what went into the selection process but he is grateful to have been chosen as he says there are many deserving recipients across the country, including in North Bay.
“Between Spartans Basketball, the Junior Lakers and Canadore Programs and more, there are hundreds of people who put in countless hours into volunteering for youth programs here in North Bay and so there are tons of people who were just as, if not, more deserving than me to get the table,” says Puddister who started a program called Northern Elite Training (N.E.T.) about five years ago with his friends Sam and Kally Levac.
“It was started to get kids more involved in summer training. For Sam, Kally, and I, that was always a fun thing to do, train together and try to get better with each other,” says Puddister.
“Sam and I played together at West Ferris before going off to our own universities, and then we’d come back to North Bay in the summer and train together. That was where it started and it has grown since then and we have had a lot of players that have come through the program that have gone on to play OCAA or USports.”
Puddister adds, “Obviously, that success is not solely because of us, but we are happy to have a part in those players' careers.”
Puddister says N.E.T. runs about four times a week and they have hired a couple of extra coaches including (Former Nipissing Lakers) Jordan Roberts who plays in the top league in Austria and Justin Schafer who plays for the Sudbury Five.
“A few weeks ago we had some guest coaches, one is a friend of mine that plays in the top league in Portugal and we also had two women players who play in the Maritime Womens Basketball Association (MWBA),” he says.
“It was a great opportunity for the young girls in town to get some training from players who are playing at a high level. N.E.T. has been a great way to expose youth in our area to high-level training just to show them what it is like to play at the college and university level and how you are going to have to train to get there. For guys like myself and Sam and a lot of guys playing USports coming out of North Bay, we went into it a little blind and not knowing what to expect when you show up for training camps and so we give the kids an idea before they get there.”
Puddister says it also shows the different paths they can take in life while having basketball be a part of that life.
“I think we’re all proud of the fact that we can show them the different pathways to playing professionally and at a high level. When I was growing up, we used to get excited when someone was being talked to by a college, that was huge news because there were no local post-secondary programs running and so when someone in our friend group got that chance to talk to a recruiter, that was huge. Now, the kids have both the Canadore and Nipissing programs right in their hometown and they can go and see it every Friday and Saturday during the season. It’s really growing and we’re trying to use N.E.T. to keep things going.”
Things have come full circle for Puddister as he owns a piece of Raptors history while giving back to his hometown.
“Growing up and watching the Toronto Raptors was huge for us in North Bay with it being the closest NBA team to us and getting to go down and see a game every once in a while was a thrill,” he says.
“In grade nine we got the chance to play a scrimmage game, West Ferris against Northern and play on the Raptors court itself which was cool and I’m thankful for (Longtime West Ferris teacher) Larry Tougas for setting that up.”
Puddister says without Togas starting the Spartans club he might not be where he is today.
“I may have been part of the original Spartans team which competed in the Ontario Basketball Association. Tougas named it the Spartans because it was a combination of our high school (West Ferris) and our middle school (Silver Birches) and there was also an outdoor court that was put up at Silver Birches that summer and so I was out there every day and that’s really where it started for me,” he says.
“I had a lot of great coaches and grew up with a great group of guys who basically stuck together and played on the same team from 7th grade to our returning year in grade 12. I was just lucky with my development and my career that it worked out that way.”
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