Kootenai County basketball teams compete in Spokane’s Hoopfest showdown
More than 6,000 teams filled 45 downtown Spokane blocks for Hoopfest, and Kootenai County players crossed the border for one of North Idaho’s biggest summer hoops traditions.
More than 6,000 teams turned Downtown Spokane into a 450-court basketball grid over the weekend, and several of them came from Kootenai County. Teams with ties to Post Falls High and North Idaho Christian crossed the border for the 37th annual Hoopfest, treating the 3-on-3 tournament as more than a Spokane spectacle.
The brackets were posted after 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 24, and the first games started at 8:00 a.m. Saturday, June 27. By the time play began, Spokane Hoopfest had again stretched across 45 city blocks, with about 3,000 volunteers helping manage the event and roughly 225,000 fans moving between courts. The event ran June 27-28 and was free to attend.
That scale is part of why North Idaho players keep coming back. Hoopfest’s history page says annual participation exceeds 6,000 teams and about 25,000 players, with 14,000 games played. It also says players have come from 44 states and 6 countries in past event figures. For Kootenai County athletes, that kind of field turns a summer weekend into a regional test, where former teammates, school rivals and adult rec players all end up sharing the same streets in Spokane.
The draw is social as well as competitive. For players and families in Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls and the wider Panhandle, the trip has become a familiar June ritual, one that mixes basketball with the chance to reconnect with people they may only see once a year. Hoopfest describes itself as an outdoor festival as much as a tournament, with shopping, food, music, games, contests and interactive entertainment built around the courts.
Spokane Hoopfest also says it makes annual charitable donations to support organizations and activities that foster athletics and participation for people of all backgrounds, and its mix of free access, street-court intensity and neighborhood-scale crowds has made it one of the Inland Northwest’s most recognizable summer events. For North Idaho teams, the border crossing is part of the point: Spokane’s biggest basketball weekend has become a regular stop on the region’s hoops calendar.
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