Kings battle Aces in Cebu this May

CEBU, Philippines - The Kings will meet the Aces and this is not a game of cards.

In order to please the skeptical Cebuanos, members of the Uptown Jaycees will bring to Cebu the crowd-favorite Ginebra Gin Kings and the Alaska Aces on May 22 at the Cebu Coliseum.

Dubbed as “PBA Duwa sa Sugbo”, both teams will be reinforced by their imports because this is a bearing game of the second conference named the PBA KFC Fiesta Cup, which starts this on Sunday at the Araneta Coliseum.

Uptown Jaycees past president Boy Te, who is the overall chairman of the PBA promotions said they are bringing the Gin Kings as what they promised when they promoted the Alaska vs. San Miguel game in Cebu two years ago.

“The game is already in the bag. We already made a down payment to the PBA Commissioner’s Office and we are appealing to the Cebuanos to support this top rank basketball promotion,” Te said during the SCOOP sports weekly forum at the Baseline Restaurant yesterday.

Announcing that Ginebra will have a good import to watch in 6-5 Awvee Story, Te was also told by the team officials that Rudy Hatfield will be back into the country and will suit up for the Kings.

The Aces of course have a diamond as they will strut their import in Diamon Simpson, a 22-year old defensive player from St. Mary’s Gales who is also measured at 6-5. Simpson averages 15.5 points and 9.6 rebounds in the NBA D-League.

Te said they are leaving for Manila anytime this week to have all the tickets printed there in order to sell them as early as possible. He also said that knowing that the Kings will draw a crowd, everywhere they play in a PBA provincial games, he said that they have no problem on crowd control and this has been addressed during the first time they promoted the game in 2007.

Last year, Cebu hosted a PBA bearing game between the San Miguel Beermen and the Coca Cola Tigers but that particular game was a flop.

When asked if the the Uptown Jaycees were aware of that promotion, Te said that is the main reason why they are announcing the game early because they have still more than a month to promote it unlike the last game where it took only for the promoters from Tacloban less than three weeks to inform the Cebu populace.

“We are confident of our capability to promote,” Te added.

 The Uptown Jaycees will be giving away five wheelchairs during the game as part of their socio-civic activities.

They are selling the tickets at P700 for ringside, P450 for lower box, P250 for upper box and P100 for general admission.

To be able to have a nice flow of crowd coming in, Te said they are not assigning seat numbers on the tickets and the paying public can sit down wherever they want on a first-come first-served basis.

Aside from Te, the other Jaycee officers who helped them in the promotion are newly-elected president Carlos Porras, Jr. and Christian Paruan of the RC Goldline, who heads the committee on door prizes. (GGM)   (FREEMAN NEWS)