“Who are you going for?”
Perhaps a silly question to ask at the fourth edition of a three-on-three basketball tournament between skateboarders, but sports are more interesting when there are emotions involved.
In past Bunt Jams, we had a rooting interest. We went for the scrappy upstart Andrew team in 2023, and cheered for their revamped roster to unseat the two-time defending champion Bunt team in 2024, which they did.
But since June 13th, 2026, when the Knicks ended their 53-year title drought, it has been tough to have any emotions tied to sports whatsoever. The weight has been lifted, and we learned that relief is the purest form of bliss. I keep reminding people: the Knicks can miss the playoffs next year, and I will not care. It is absolute nirvana. With that in mind, it was tougher to weave emotions into the 2026 Bunt Jam, so what follows is absolute objectivity ;)
This was the first year that the Bunt Jam did not take place at Dunbat, Toronto’s proverbial Tompkins. The 2026 tournament was on Polson Pier, which juts out of downtown Toronto into Lake Ontario, and can be reached by water taxi, a ten-minute car ride, bike or a long, flat skate. It is more of a destination, which meant that spectators couldn’t pop by both as easy as in past years.
Day two’s massive crowd showed that the public wanted to see skaters …skate. Day one’s — the day of the basketball tournament — was for the die-hards. They were screaming at Referee Gary Rogers like he was the reincarnation of Joey Crawford, handing him glasses to correct his vision whenever they believed he missed a foul. They demanded that the commissioners verify lesser-known players’ skateboard abilities, so as to confirm the “you can only play if you can kickflip” credo instilled in the tournament’s charter to filter out on-court mercenaries. They also seethed for an upset.
The first match-up of the evening was between the defending champion Andrew team, and the Hoddle team, which had won the 2024 international tournament in Australia. Andrew opened with an offensive barrage that had them halfway to the 11 points needed to win and Hoddle scoreless in the first minutes. An upset seemed elusive.
After Andrew’s Round 1 win, beleaguered coaches demanded that the Miamians’ latest reserve player, Coffee Zone, present his skateboard abilities. Who was this guy?! Unfortunately for them, he busted a fat nollie heel in basketball shoes mid-court, first try. Those lobbying for a suspension were forced to concede that the game must go on.
And the premonitions were not only directed towards Andrew. When the bracket release prompted the 2020 S.O.T.Y. and Spitfire guard Mason Silva to comment “Violet in the first round smh,” it announced a palpable feeling of the inevitable in this year’s tournament: a rematch of 2024’s Andrew v.s. Violet finals.
The road to the finals was thus spent enjoying the show. Rick Howard made his triumphant Bunt Jam debut, but unfortunately did not score as Chocolate went down to Andrew in the second round after having defeated WKND in the first. Chocolate also used their roster to reveal new teamrider, Alltimers expat and Toronto native, Stafhon Boca. We watched Nicole Hause become a three-point shootout champion, and Davis Torgerson leave it all on the court as The Bunt lost in the second round to Violet.
Andrew would go on to rout Violet 12 to 4 to two-peat. Violet guard Kader Sylla waved the white flag on Rezza Honarvar’s game-winning shot.
It was a triumphant moment for their team and fans to watch the greatest skater-basketball team win again. Others fans took it differently.
“They’re too good!”
Some shrugged, others vented, and some demanded a restructuring of the Bunt Jam CBA — not unlike the calls for parity that besieged the NBA in the 2010s after the reign of dynasties that dominated from the 1980s into the Steph and Lebron era. Some insisted that the Andrew team must be disbanded to preserve the playing field, others insisted on reforms that only allowed admittance to professional skateboarders, not bonafide hoopers who can also kinda shred.
In the late-2010s dregs of Knicks seasons, it was tough to care who won because you knew how it would end. The second best basketball player of the 2010s had teamed up with the third best basketball player of the 2010s (who you could make the case for being the 2nd), and won the title in 2017 and 2018 — after the third had already won without him in 2015 and then lead the team to 73 regular-season wins in 2016. Of course it ended that way.
There has been much talk about the “weight” of rings in the wake of the Knicks title. Kevin Durant has two, but there will forever be clamor about how much those rings “weigh.” Do they weigh as much as Brunson’s in 2026? As much as the one Kawhi brought to Toronto in 2019? Or the one Steph got without K.D. in 2015, for that matter? Does Andrew’s 2026 Bunt Jam ring weigh as much as their hard-fought road to 2024’s?
But by the same token, weren’t the 2021 Nets supposed to be the Greatest Basketball Team of All-Time? Wasn’t that 2013 Kobe-Dwight-Nash line-up all but guaranteed a chip? Didn’t the Heat Big 3 get crushed in their first trip to the Finals? Isn’t Philly supposed to win it all next year?
We think we know, but we don’t know shit. It is why we continue watching. The weight of rings is subjective. And it turns out, the weight of trophies is too.
At the Bunt Jam afterparty, hosted at the elegant Keating Channel Pub & Grill — Toronto’s rival to Miami’s Club LIV — a person not affiliated with Andrew who shall go unnamed, knocked over the championship trophy on accident. It shattered into a million pieces.
Do not try and tell me you know how the 2027 Bunt Jam will turn out.
Previosuly: A Tale of a Three-Peat Unraveled (2024), Losing The Bunt Jam — A Court-Level Perspective (2023)