Not sure if any of you were aware but Vince Carter has an annual Charity All-Star game on the first weekend in August - it coincides with a rather large "Carnival" type event that draws pro athletes and celebrities in large numbers. Both years he has held it have been 100% sellouts (19,800 + standing room). There's a lot of stuff going on and I thought I'd post a link to a photo gallery I put up of the game itself. The Rockets own Kenny Thomas was in the game, as were others like Elton Brand, Antawn Jamison, Alonzo Mourning and Jerry Stackhouse. Cuttino was supposed to be there but cancelled the day before. <a href="http://www.dunknetwork.com/raptors/" target="new">Click here for the photo gallery</a> - Caution to those on 56k: 27 photos on one page Last year Shaq and T-Mac had their own All-Star game on the same day as Carter's about 2 miles away, but it was more of a hip-hop celebrity thing than anything else. Shaq has been having his Twism parties here for about 5 years in a row now. Guys like Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady, Elton Brand, Gary Payton and Charles Oakley all throw Caribana (now called carnival) parties at nightclubs and such. Other basketball related events this year include a Toronto vs New York streetball tournament hosted by Jerome Williams. The Rucker Park crew won by one point. MoPete and other Michigan guys are having a 3-on-3 tourney at a massive lakeshore sports/nightclub complex. Shaq didn't have his basketball game this year but co-hosted a party on Friday with Vince at a new club called "Inside" that Carter has reportedly bought into as a partner. Anyways... guess I'm just trying to educate some of you on how cool Toronto actually is and how much support there actually is for basketball, Carter, the Raptors and "urban culture" to some extent as well. I've been to the US (and Texas) many times and have been amazed at how little some people know about Canada in general and Toronto in particular. The Caribana event generally has between 500,000 and a million participants (mostly of Caribbean or African American heritage) in the main parade event. We're not all white, most of us don't speak French and it gets quite hot here for much of the year. Our winter is no different than New York or Chicago and we happen to really enjoy a lot of things OTHER than hockey. /rant
