The Coal Bowl Classic is a national invitational male/female high school

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

tournament, which is held at

Breton Education Centre BEC, is a co-ed high school with students from grades 6-12 in New Waterford, Nova Scotia. It is part of the Cape Breton – Victoria Regional School Board. BEC opened in 1970 in New Waterford, NS serving 2,300 students from grades 7-12. The enrol ...

in New Waterford,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, Canada. The first tournament was held in 1982 with Queen Elizabeth High School of

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The ...

, Canada winning the cup. A major facilitating factor is that all team members are housed within one wing of the school. Breton Education Centre is a combined middle school and high school which opened in 1970. The tournament, first held in 1982, takes its name from the former primary industry of New Waterford,

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

. Coal mining employed thousands of men and was the main industry on the Island for over 100 years. All the mines on the island were closed in the 1980s and 90s. However Kameron Coal Ltd opened a coal mine in Donkin ( just outside Glace Bay) in 2017. The tournament held in February in the year of 2020 will be the Coal Bowl Classic's 38th year.

External links

Coal Bowl
official website
Breton Education Centre
website High school basketball in Canada Sport in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality 1982 establishments in Nova Scotia Recurring sporting events established in 1982 Basketball competitions in Canada {{basketball-competition-stub