Shay Shtriks: We finished a very good year, full of great basketball moments

After the last game for 2013 in EUROHOLD Balkan League was played, here is what the Sports Director of the competition - Mr. Shay Shtriks had to say for the past 12 months:
 
Dear Friends,
 
On behalf of Mr. Assen Christov and myself, I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We do wish all of you a great basketball season and most importantly health and luck to you and your families.
 
We finished a very good year with the EUROHOLD Balkan League, full of great basketball moments and events in season 2012-13 which finished with the interesting and quality Final Four in Samokov, Bulgaria.
 
Then, we started our 6th season with new system and new teams. It is the first time that we start the season in the new system of league and until now, exactly 2 months of playing, we had 32 games where 40% of them finished with wining of the guest team, there were 2 games with overtime and average points different in all the game was 9 points.
 
We saw great games in very high level basketball, very good officiating and most importantly - most of the sports halls were full of spectators supporting their club in the best way.80% of the games were televised live and 95% of the games broadcast in Sport Media TV.
 
Here is the place to say "thank you" to the clubs because for them is the first time to play according to such system with very intensive rhythm, and to the players and coaches who are taking this challenge in the best possible way.     
 
During 2014 EUROHOLD Balkan League has a proposal how to develop the basketball in our region and how to support the Junior′s and the Woman′s basketball on the Balkans.
 
1. Junior U18 competition - 10 teams which will play in the 2 groups - 5 tournaments during the year in deferent cities - 3 major events played in 2 groups (20 games per event), 1 Top 6 (9 games) and to finish with Junior′s Final Four played  during the Men′s Final Four of EUROHOLD Balkan League.  
 
We do believe that the future of the basketball in the Balkans is in the hands of the young players and we must give them the possibility to develop not only in the local leagues or in FIBA Europe summer tournaments, but with international games on club′s level and to gain experience which will support also the national teams of each federation.
 
2. Woman′s Balkan League - 7 teams to play in a league against each other - 42 games, (the same system as the Men′s League), QF + Final Four. 
 
The idea is to provide the possibility to the clubs which cannot have the budgets to play in FIBA Europe competitions to play international games in our region with relatively smaller expenses and to have the possibility to improve the level of the women′s basketball in the area, the local leagues and obviously in that case to increase the level of the national teams.
 
For the two new projects that we are planning for 2014 we still need to work on some details and ideas and I do believe that in the end of January we will send to all the federations a draft-proposal for each project so that we can have the opinion and remarks from all of you.
 
The Management of EUROHOLD Balkan League is proud for what we have achieved for the past 5 seasons by supporting and developing the basketball in our region. It was definitely done with the big support of all the national federations and the clubs that played and continue playing at present in the league.  
 
I would like to say a special thanks to our General sponsor - EUROHOLD, who are with us for a sixth straight season and they continue to support the basketball. I also want to say a special thank you to our other sponsors and partners from GLOBUL, Pepsi, Mazda, FIAT, RIU Pravets, BNT, Sportmedia.tv, BGbasket.com as well as the media partners in the different countries - Macedonian National TV, Kosovo National TV, Romanian National TV, RTV - 21 and to all the staff that is producing the signal for Sportmedia.tv.
 
To all of them and to the Players, Coaches, Team members, Members of the federations, Referees and commissioners,  to the devoted people working in Balkan League office, 
 
We like to wish all of you and your families, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!