{"id":932737,"date":"2026-10-18T15:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T15:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/932737\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T15:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T15:44:10","slug":"worlds-oldest-basketball-court-project-gets-3m-contribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/932737\/","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s oldest basketball court project gets $3M contribution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A St. Stephen native has made a significant contribution to a piece of history in his hometown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bruce Buchanan gave $3 million to the Basketball Experience Centre, home of the world\u2019s oldest basketball court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Buchanan grew up across the street from David and Gordon Ganong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI knew that David was heading up this project,\u201d Buchanan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI really wanted to help David and I really wanted to help St. Stephen to celebrate this historic finding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The contribution will speed up the project\u2019s completion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Ganong said the $3 million got the project \u201cvery close\u201d to its fundraising goal of $6 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis is much more than a financial contribution,\u201d Ganong said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBruce Buchanan\u2019s generosity reflects a deep connection to his hometown and a belief in the importance of preserving St. Stephen\u2019s basketball heritage while creating a destination that can contribute to the community\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Buchanan said when he became aware of the project, he reached out to Ganong and learned about the funding gap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI wanted to finish the project off for them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Basketball Experience Centre is being developed around the history of the oldest basketball court and the story of basketball in St. Stephen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The project has already gotten strong community and philanthropic support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s also gaining recognition in Canada\u2019s basketball community, and St. Stephen\u2019s hosting of the 2026 Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame celebration showed the community\u2019s ability to host major basketball events and highlighted the court\u2019s potential as a nationally significant destination.<\/p>\n<p>                                                                                                                                                                                                                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Bryan-Tait-sq-150x150-1.jpg\"  class=\"multiple_authors_guest_author_avatar avatar\" height=\"100\" width=\"100\"\/>                                                                                                                                                                                                            <\/p>\n<p>Bryan Tait is an award-winning journalist based in New Brunswick. He\u2019s a 2008 graduate of St. Thomas University\u2019s journalism program, and a 2021 graduate of the University of New Brunswick\u2019s law program. Contact Bryan at taitb@radioabl.ca.<\/p>\n<p>                                                                        <a href=\"https:\/\/yoursaintjohn.ca\/author\/taitb\/\" title=\"View all posts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                                                                            View all posts<br \/>\n                                                                        <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                                                                                                                                <a class=\"ppma-author-user_email-profile-data ppma-author-field-meta ppma-author-field-type-email\" aria-label=\"Email\" href=\"https:\/\/yoursaintjohn.ca\/worlds-oldest-basketball-court-project-gets-3m-contribution\/mailto:TaitB@radioabl.ca\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A St. Stephen native has made a significant contribution to a piece of history in his hometown. Bruce&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-932737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=932737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}