Court Cuts: The Original House of Highlights

Before HoH, there was Court Cuts. Basketball clip show greatness.

Author

Kevin Merisanu
May 01, 2023

Court Cuts: The Original (Basketball) House Of Highlights

Before ‘We The North’

It’s 4PM. Toronto. Mid 2000’s. TheScore; channel 53 (now Sportsnet360), was a 24/7 ticker and sports highlight channel.

TheScore, with small pockets - played the long game. Betting on MMA and basketball. Sports content was inherently rooted in hockey. It was the #1 show in town.

Unapologetically; this small sports media company wanted to separate themselves. Offering a different type of coverage. Doubling down on basketball. Smart.

The type of coverage we now scroll through on TikTok or Instagram.

The type of coverage that took the best highlights from each NBA game, distilled it into an action-packed 30 min TV spot, and kept your eyes glued to see who would get dunked on or crossed over.

The Godfather of Court Cuts

The modern era House of Highlights and Overtime channels are content behemoths, running because CourtCuts walked.

Created by the Godfather of CourtCuts - Brendon Lynch, and a small group of basketball fanatics. Court Surfing and its signature segment Court Cuts were appointment viewing for Canadian hoops fans - providing a base for theScore to show NCAA March Madness in 2008

Taping games and clipping them together, while their bosses thought they were crazy. Court Cuts and Court Surfing ushered in what we see today when consuming sport content.

The guy they called ‘Dino’ would clip together a bunch of west coast games. Games that us folks on the east coast would never see. This gave Canadians insight into those games, a first for Canadian TV.

At the end of the season, he would compile all the Court Cut segments onto DVD’s for the producers, reporters and editors that helped record these games throughout the year.

Jason Thom

Dino, the genius that he is, had the idea to do PLAYER specific Court Cuts. Clipping together dunks, insane shots and ally-oops from Kobe Bryant, LeBron, Vince Carter, Allen Iverson, Ray Allen, the list goes on.

There was no where you could watch any of this if you were in Canada and had only had Rogers or Bell… or ESPN for that matter (which I think only 1 kid I knew had)

Weekend after weekend, bball lovers waited for that sweet, sweet Court Cuts music to hit…

Inspiring Future Pro’s + Basketball Nerds

Some of the Canadian pro’s we watch today (SGA, Wiggins, Murray) all grew up with Court Cuts. Basketball nerds like myself, took to forums (shout out JustBBall and SportsTwo) to chat with various strangers about the sport we loved. I even moderated the Toronto Raptors forum for a few years on SportsTwo.

Looking back, TheScore let their on-air TV personalities, be 100% themselves - and we loved it.

Sid Seixeiro, Tim Micallef, Cabbie, and Adnan Virk. What a crew. Regardless of your thoughts on Tim and Sid, they crushed it. Cabbie and Virk, crushed it. Simple as that. They LOVED what they were doing, and you could tell.

This is from a Medium post by Tyler Munro. Summed up perfectly as to the magic of Court Cuts and Court Surfing.

Thanks to Court Surfing, I got to watch a bit of every team. Games that otherwise weren’t on my TV suddenly were. I could catch Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan battle in the post for a few minutes before Virk shifted to an out of market drubbing by the surging Sacramento Kings. I could watch Antawn Jamison awkwardly swish wrong-footed post moves for the then-lowly Golden State Warriors before switching to see Patrick Ewing, by that point a 50/50 human amalgam of torrential flopsweat and drenched knee pads, slow down the Doc Rivers-coached Magic. I got to see Grant Hill sitting sadly on the bench while cursing McGrady’s newfound propensity to actually make the shots he was taking.

It was fucking rad.

Court Surfing helped NBA fans find themselves. It helped them find their teams. At a time when basketball was finally surging in Canada, or at least Toronto, it gave kids access to a world beyond Vince Carter dunks. Sure, those dunks were sick, wicked, and nasty, but they were the tip of the tower.

Tyler Munro

The Original House of Highlights

Court Cuts walked so HoH could run.

Switching from live game, to stunning highlight on perfectly timed cuts and hilarious banter. You connected with Tim, Sid, Cabbie and Virk.

A golden era of basketball, still continuing today. TheScore made basketball a priority, and because of that - influenced a generation of kids and teens to love basketball that will last a lifetime.

While you can get these highlights in seconds after they happen live, those of us who grew up in the mid-2000’s deeply miss the excitement of turning on Court Cuts and Court Surfing.

We couldn’t tap the like button, or comment. We had no one to even talk to about this other then whoever you hung out with at school. It was special, and ahead of its time. It doesn’t get enough credit for the massive influence it had.

The Court Cuts instagram page would have millions of followers had Insta or Tik Tok been around then.

I would love a re-boot. I think we’ve lost the magic of what live TV was, and while we won’t get it back - I think an online re-work of Court Cuts and Court Surfing could work. Live on YouTube. Every night.

A man can dream, can’t he?

I now leave you with a Kobe Bryant 8 minute Court Cuts Mixtape.

You’re welcome.