Hotwire cancels hotel rooms of Maritime youth basketball team

Young basketball players and their parentswho travelledfrom Nova Scotia and New Brunswickto New Jersey to participate in a tournamentthis long weekend are scrambling to find hotel rooms after discovering the online booking siteHotwirecancelled their reservations.

The We Will Win Youth Association usedHotwirein Augustto book17hotel rooms at theCrownePlaza.

The children are participating in the Under ArmourHoop Group JamFest, which has also attracted teams fromseveral northeastern U.S. states.

Stranded in New Jersey

When theyarrivedFridaynight,front desk staff at the hoteltold them their rooms were cancelled.

"They just said the rooms were cancelled and thatHotwireshould have called and let me know and placed us somewhere else," saidColterSimmonds, founder and director of the We Will Win Foundation.

Simmonds is part of the group that's stranded.

More than 40 players, rangingin age from 12 to 15, are travellingfrom theHalifax-area andWindsor, N.S., andMoncton, N.B. Theyfundraised$5,000 to go on the trip.

There was no problem with the bookings for 23roomsat the Days Inn, but it was a different story at theCrownePlaza.

Five hours in the lobby

When the group arrived at the hotel, they were planning to hit the swimming pool and relax before the tournament. Instead, the playersspent five hours sitting on the floor of theCrownePlaza lobby.

Simmondssays eventually the hotel foundrooms for them at another hotel but by then it was1 a.m.

The team is still looking for a place to staySaturdaynight.

"[TheCrownePlaza]were the ones who did what they could to try and accommodate us and try to help us out. They stayed on the phone for four hours withHotwire," said Simmonds.

He blamesHotwirefor the situation.

"Those are the people we paid our money to and if there was a reason for them changing the rooms orcancellingthe rooms, none of that was communicated to us. I don't think it's anybody else's fault but theirs because they got our money," said Simmonds.

Simmondssays the whole ordeal has been tough on the team, but they managed topull off their first win of the weekend tournament.

CBC News has requested comment multiple times from Hotwire, but has yet to receive a response.