Hoop Heads North: One on One with Jay Triano in Halifax

On Friday night, the night before Jay Triano’s visit to Wal-Mart for the NBA Cares Canadian tour, friends and I bumped into Jay Triano outside Halifax bar, The Argyle. We were out for my girlfriend, Naomi’s birthday and as we passed by, my buddy/co-blogger, U-E and I automatically recognized him. I grabbed Jay’s attention and immediately he came out to talk to us.  It was a cool experience, talking ball with Jay on the sidewalk of Argyle St. discussing everything from the Raptors’ past season, to their offseason moves, to the latest episode of Entourage with Steve Nash.  He even asked us for a scouting report on Eric Crookshank, a player on our local PBL team, the Halifax Rainmen who happened to walk by as we were talking.

I decided to seize the opportunity and told him a bit about our blog and asked if I could do a quick interview with him the next day.  And of course he agreed….a chance to speak to the world famous blog, Hoop Heads North, reppin’ the Raps in the Maritimes..Jay had been a die hard reader from the start (actually…he was more like “you write for Hoop Heads what?”)

Fast forward to Wal-Mart the next day…It was non-stop for Jay Triano, touring across the city, raising awareness for NBA Cares. Fans had the opportunity to take pictures with him and the Larry O’Brien championship trophy.  And at the end of his first stop in Bayers Lake, I was able to squeeze in a few minutes with Jay before he left for his next stop.  It was exciting to get the chance to talk to Jay Triano in the Hoop Heads North hometown of Halifax and get his thoughts on the upcoming season.

The interview setting was perfect.  The women’s clothing section of the Wal-Mart in Bayers Lake, Halifax. This was my first chance as a rookie interviewer/blogger to get a few minutes with an NBA personality.  As a basketball fan, it was an honor to talk to a Canadian legend, who has done wonders for Canadian basketball, is a two-time Olympian, former Team Canada head coach and most notably, the first Canadian-born head coach in the NBA.

There is a bit of background noise in the video as Jay’s NBA counterparts were taking down equipment beside us and the Wal-Mart cash registers were beeping like mad. My first question was “How do you see the team meshing with all the new faces this season?” the second question was asking his thoughts on rookie Demar DeRozan (in case the audio sounds a bit muffled).

Big ups to HHN co-blogger, San Fran aka Sean (seen below with the fam) for giving the heads up on the event and huge thanks to Jay Triano and his NBA Canada reps for even giving us a few minutes to do an interview with him.