When Paul MacIsaac was six years old, his parents took him to learn how to play hockey along with dozens of other youngsters at the old Antigonish Arena. He lasted long enough to know it wasn’t for him. But the game of basketball – that was a different story. Now living in Truro decades later, he’s made sure that the sport is available to everyone in Nova Scotia’s Colchester County.
Always searching out a good scrimmage wherever he could find one, basketball became Paul’s game in high school. Brief coaching stints in Antigonish and St. Andrews followed before work and family took over and the game naturally moved to the backburner.
But it didn’t stay back there long. When his kids were old enough to want to play, Paul went looking for a place in his Truro community and was surprised by what he uncovered.
“We didn’t have a club in our community,” he recalls. “We looked around and we didn’t see the ability for our community to play at a competitive level with other towns in the area.”
So, he helped establish one.
In 2013, Paul became one of the founding members of the Colchester Basketball Association (CBA). As the organization’s first president, a role he held for just over a decade, he focused on keeping coaches, teams and volunteers moving in the same direction.
Then came an unexpected pivot.
As the CBA got up and running with plenty of coaches, Paul noticed a shortage in referees was becoming the biggest challenge. So, he got certified, started officiating and discovered a new way to view and love the game.
“The more games I’ve refed, the more I want to keep doing it,” he says.
While he eventually stepped down as the CBA president, he didn’t totally step away from the sport. He actually went laterally, becoming the area supervisor and assignor for Colchester’s basketball officials. One responsibility traded for another of equal weight.
Enticing young people to become referees in any sport today has become a challenge. The level of poor behavior dumped in a ref’s lap from coaches and parents has become a concern across the province.
Ask Paul about officiating today and he’ll give you a thoughtful and nuanced answer.
The challenge, as he sees it, is partly about rules. Basketball in Canada follows FIBA’s international rules, which differ meaningfully from the NBA and U.S. college games. Which means fans might be applying the wrong set of rules to minor league gameplay in Nova Scotia.
“There’s too much liberty given to those people to voice their opinions,” Paul says. “Consequently, we all end up in positions where the dynamic between players, coaches, fans and officials is more combative than collaborative.”
And the result sees new referees learning the skill, who are already making around 700 decisions per game, put under scrutiny they’re not yet equipped to handle.
As a result, many simply choose not to come back.
Paul’s prescription isn’t a crackdown; it’s education. A better understanding of the rules, a more collaborative culture on the floor and patience as things slowly shift. He’s not naive about the time it may take to turn things for the better. But he keeps showing up, mentoring new officials and modelling the professionalism he hopes will eventually become the norm.
Beyond showing refereeshow to use their whistle, Paul’s investment in basketball has never been limited to the competitive aspect of the game.
Ten years ago, he introduced wheelchair basketball to Colchester County, quietly expanding who the sport belonged to. In 2021, he helped develop and run Hoop Strong, a program built specifically for girls who lacked access to the game. From 2018 to 2023, he kept the CBA present in Colchester’s Multi-Sport programming, creating sessions that brought basketball into new spaces and reaching athletes who might never have walked into a gym on their own.
He’s also served as a director on Basketball Nova Scotia’s Board of Directors, taking his advocacy for access and growth to the provincial stage. Through it all, Paul’s been a deliberate champion for women and girls in the sport; not just as players, but as coaches, officials and community leaders.
This year’s recipient of the Sport Nova Scotia Chair Award, Paul remains instrumental within the province’s basketball community.
What sets Paul MacIsaac apart, according to those who’ve played under or worked alongside him, is something harder to quantify in a resume. Former athletes describe him as welcoming and encouraging, someone who created pathways.
He seems to know instinctively when someone’s ready to take the next step, and when it’s time for him to make room.
Many of the young adults who came through Colchester’s basketball system are now coaching or officiating; they’re in the game because the boy who didn’t take to the ice decades ago found something even more special on Nova Scotia’s hardwood.
