NORWICH – The 2024 Norwich Gus Macker Tournament returned to the downtown streets for the first time in five years, which sparked a whole new generation of players, volunteers, and spectators seeing the tournament back to its true form of “street ball.”

“ It was a time of remembrance of how to set up and run a downtown tournament,” YMCA Sports Director, Tom Revoir said. “ It all started coming back to us when we were setting up and some of the people that helped us and played over the weekend got to experience playing downtown for the very first time. A lot of people had only just joined when we held it at the high school, like City Church Pastor Zach Thorp. Overall, I was very pleased with the tournament. It gave us a chance to put on a show and showcase downtown Norwich.”

YMCA Executive Director, Jamey Mullen, added, “The tournament went well and it was great to return to the spot, where it was held for over 20 years,” Mullen said. “ We took it for granted what Macker really was and have done this for so long that we also took for granted a whole group of people that had never been downtown. We and the ones that were with us before knew where things would be, but the new ones didn’t, so we need to step up our game.”