The Bermuda Basketball Association have announced that One Communications will be sponsoring the Winter League, which tipped off last week.

In addition, the league’s teams will be linked to the island’s parishes.

“It should be a very interesting league,” Cecil Hendrickson, the BBA secretary general, said after Hamilton Parish Rockets’ 67-66 victory over Southampton Thundercats at Somersfield Academy on Wednesday night.

Kameron James led the Rockets to victory with 22 points and seven rebounds, while Chris Crumpler, who helped the Falcons to the Atlantic Vision Care Elite City League title in December, missed a potential buzzer-beating three-pointer to win it for the Thundercats.

“The last game I thought was going to go a little differently than it did,” Hendrickson said. “The Hamilton Parish Rockets were able to pull out a one-point victory and Crump’s heroics down the stretch were only able to get them within one. His last-second three missed, but it was a good game to watch.”

Hendrickson explained the decision to link teams to parishes.

“What we found before is that most of the major sports on the island, there’s a link to a place,” he said. “You go to football and there’s PHC, Pembroke Hamilton Club, North Village, St George’s, St David’s. Cricket, same way, you’ve got St David’s, Bailey’s Bay, Cleveland County. So we decided to go back to our old roots and put a link there to our parishes. It used to be like this before in the BBA.”

The secretary general was delighted with the new sponsorship deal.

“We’ve also got One Communications on board as a sponsor for the league,” Hendrickson said. “So if people check channel 100 periodically, they’ll be able to see our video games of what’s next, the videos we have done that you would normally see on our Facebook page, you’ll be able to see those too, with the results.

“One has been very generous to be able to allow us to purchase new uniforms. They’re on their way and when they come then you’ll see more of a stamp of One on the league.”

The league continues at Somersfield this weekend, with Smith’s Court Kings taking on Pembroke Sky Force and Hamilton City Twisters facing Warwick Rimrockers tonight. Sky Force then play Rimrockers tomorrow, followed by Devonshire Chargers against Paget Flyboys. Action on both days starts at 6.45pm.