PALMER — There’s a notable omission on the 2008-09 prep basketball schedule. For the first time in nearly two decades, Palmer High School will not host the Palmer Elks Showdown basketball tournament.

“It’s a sad deal,” Paul Reid, head coach of the Palmer girls’ basketball team, said. “It’s just one of those things. It’s a given, you always start the season with the Showdown.”

According to Palmer activities director Jeff Thiede, a variety of scheduling difficulties prompted Palmer High to cancel the Showdown for the first time in nearly 20 years. But Thiede stressed, Palmer is calling it a “one-year hiatus,” and the school hopes the tournament will return next season. Typically, the Showdown is one of the first major events on the prep basketball schedule and usually falls on the calendar sometime in mid-December. But this year, due to a change in the Alaska Schools Activities Association master schedule, prep basketball doesn’t start until Dec. 1. That’s a week later than normal.

Because of the change, and the need for teams to get 10 full days of practice in before the first scheduled game, Palmer couldn’t host the three-day Showdown during that mid-December weekend. Instead, the Moose would have to push the tourney back to Dec. 18-20.

That initially was an option, Thiede said, but there are also seven other prep tournaments scheduled across the state that weekend.

“We tried to schedule it, but there were conflicts,” Thiede said.

Thiede said Palmer High also considered moving the tournament deeper into the season and hosting it in January or February, but couldn’t find a weekend that would not conflicted with previously scheduled games.

Reid said he is certainly disappointed by the loss of the Showdown, a tournament that annually gave Palmer three games against solid competition before the Christmas holiday break, but is hopeful that there will be just a one-year absence.

“Hopefully we can work to get it back next year,” Reid said.

Not only has the tourney been a staple on the schedule, but Reid said the Palmer Elks Lodge’s support of Palmer basketball and Moose athletics has been tremendous, and he hopes that relationship will continue to thrive.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.