For anyone who is a basketball fan the last couple of weeks have offered some good news.
The Canadian Elite Basketball League made three rather significant announcements, and since the Saskatchewan Rattlers are part of the league, the inaugural champions in fact, this is rather big for fans here.
The first announcement was that the league is adding a seventh team in 2020, the Ottawa BlackJacks.
I must say the team announcement made me smile; “Named after the most elusive jackrabbit on the planet, the Ottawa BlackJacks are not your typical bunny. BlackJacks are incredibly fast, capable of reaching speeds in excess of 70 kilometres per hour and can outrun many of its opponents. Tremendous leapers, the BlackJacks have very strong legs and can jump more than 10 feet, which is the same height as a basketball net. Equipped with a black tail and incredible defence, the BlackJacks are often hungry creatures because of their work ethic and can consume large quantities of food. BlackJacks travel the world throughout the year but love to return home to Ottawa during the spring and summer months, when they are most productive. With such a large basketball community in the Ottawa area, BlackJacks population is set to climb substantially in the coming year.”
I had expected the league might then have added a team in the west to maintain balance, as there are many obvious locales a team might settle; Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary and Winnipeg jumping immediately to mind, but that did not happen.
Still I see the CEBL as potentially at least a 12-team loop in the not so distant future, and that is good news, if it happens, for Canadian basketball, as the league has a set ratio of players that must be Canadian.
The CEBL then made news again with a rather interesting deal signed. The league and CBC Sports announced a three-year content partnership, making the public broadcaster the premier media partner of Canada’s only First Division professional basketball league.
“CBC Sports will offer live streams of all 70 regular season CEBL games and its five playoff contests on the free CBC Gem streaming service, cbcsports.ca and the CBC Sports app for iOS and Android devices. That is interesting to be sure but CEBLTV was doing a solid job of online coverage.
Of more intrigue CBC will also provide broadcast coverage of seven regular season games and the CEBL Championship Weekend in Edmonton, (it was in Saskatoon this year). This is bigger news by far since good ratings could see the number of broadcast games grow, which is reasonable that a Canadian broadcaster look favourably at broadcasting a Canadian league.
And, finally the CEBL has already released its 2020 schedule. The season tips off Thursday, May 7, 2020 when the expansion Ottawa BlackJacks debut on the road against the Niagara River Lions at 7 p.m.
Our Rattlers start the season on the road May 8 in Abbotsford to face the Fraser Valley Bandits, then open at home at the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon May 14, a Thursday night, against the same Bandits.
For anyone who has not watched a Rattler game, if you enjoy basketball, they are certainly worth finding online. Since the league uses FIBA rules, quarters are only 10-minutes each, so the game moves along at a good pace. The season runs May to the first week of August.
