From violence to peace: Tournament draws teams from as far as Boston

The year 2016 was a deadly one for black men in the Halifax region. That year alone, seven were fatally shot.

Those killings and the loss of friends and cousins to gun violence before that led Corvell Beals and Miranda Cain to start the Peace Basketball Tournament in North Preston, N.S., two years ago.

"I knew that I could … relate to where a lot of the younger guys were at the time," said Beals, who is CEO of a family-owned meal preparation business in Dartmouth, N.S.

"So in 2016 … I felt like I was responsible to kind of be a part of the change."

The 3rd Annual Peace Tournament starts today, with teams coming from as far away as Boston and Toronto for games that will be held at various gyms throughout the Halifax region.

Today's locations include the North Preston Community Centre, East Preston Recreation Centre, and the Community Y and University of King's College in Halifax. The tournament ends Sunday.

Following the 2016 homicides, Beals committed himself to supporting younger boys in his community to help them cope with the killings.

"We want to try to impact on the biggest scale possible," he said.

The Peace Tournament, he said, is an invitation to everybody to come, join and "participate in peace."

Whether the victims were from his community of North Preston or from Uniacke Square in Halifax, Beals, like others in the black community, said he felt connected to each of the losses.

"I honestly couldn't tell you how many people that I've lost to gun violence, but I know it's a lot, it's too many," he said.

Cain, the tournament's co-founder, said that when she was growing up there was no gun violence that pitted community against community.

This tournament, she said, like the former Provincial Black Basketball Tournament, is an event that brings communities together to socialize.

"By no means at all is this Peace Tournament just only about gun violence," said Cain, who heads the North Preston Futures Community Organization Society.

"A lot of people are associating that with the community of North Preston where they're thinking we're just trying to combat gun violence," she said. "Violence will happen everywhere, anywhere, at [any] given time.

"[But] by all means we can hope and give tools and techniques … which is more important than trying to say we're going to play a basketball game to stop the violence."

Cain stresses that the tournament, though based in a black community, is open to everyone.