Canadian Elite Basketball League

holding the CEBL trophy in 2020 The CEBL was first announced in October 2017. In December 2018, the CEBL reached a five-year deal with New Era to be the official apparel provider of the league. The CEBL also reached an official agreement with Canada Basketball for it to be recognized as its first division professional league (in a league system akin to European competition); this endorsement also allows the CEBL access to resources from the governing body. Canada Basketball CEO Glen Grunwald stated that the league would provide an "exciting new product and a further development opportunity for Canadian players, coaches, referees, administrators and management types." Due to this agreement, the league plays under the standard FIBA rules. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 CEBL season was postponed, and conducted as a shortened tournament in a bio-secure bubble behind closed doors, branded as the CEBL Summer Series. Beginning in the 2020 season, the CEBL adopted the Elam Ending—as recently popularized by The Basketball Tournament and the NBA All-Star Game—for all games, under which the game clock is turned off near the end of the fourth quarter, and teams play to a target score to determine the winner. In the 2021–22 season, the Edmonton Stingers represented Canada in the Basketball Champions League Americas (BCLA). Expansion In November 2019, the Ottawa BlackJacks were announced as the league's first expansion team, and seventh overall, beginning in the 2020 season. In February 2021, Morreale announced that an expansion team in Montreal would be added no earlier than the 2022 season; due to COVID-19, no new expansion teams were added for the 2021 season. Later in 2021, the Scarborough Shooting Stars, the Montreal Alliance, and the Newfoundland Growlers were all announced as expansion teams for the 2022 season. In November 2022, the league announced that the Winnipeg Sea Bears would join the CEBL in the 2023 season, while the Newfoundland Growlers would be suspending operations. In August 2022, the league announced that the Guelph Nighthawks would be relocating to Calgary, Alberta as the Calgary Surge. In August 2023, the CEBL Clash was played at the Videotron Centre in Quebec City. It was an all-star game between top players from the Eastern and Western Conferences. The event was done in partnership with Gestev, a subsidiary of Quebecor Sports and Entertainment Group. Upon announcing the CEBL Clash, it was confirmed that Gestev is seriously considering support for an expansion team in Quebec City for 2024 based on the success of the event. The CEBL Clash attracted over 7,000 spectators. Another team in the West will join along with the unnamed Quebec City team to keep the conferences balanced. Outdoors On May 23, 2025, the Montreal Alliance hosted the Ottawa BlackJacks in a CEBL game outdoors at IGA Stadium. According to the league, "It will be the first professional five-on-five basketball game held outdoors in Canadian history." == Game format ==

CEBL games are five-on-five in four quarters of ten minutes each. Beginning in 2020, the league implemented an Elam Ending system: after the first time stoppage in the last four minutes of the final quarter, the game clock is turned off and the target score is set at 9 more than the current leading score. For example, if the score was 110-105, then the target score is 119 and the first team to reach that wins. == Teams ==

Current teams Former teams Timeline DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:25 PlotArea = left:20 right:20 bottom:20 top:20 Period = from:2018 till:2026 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Colors = id:majorGridColor value:rgb(0.9,0.9,0.9) id:lineColor value:gray(0.5) id:notpro value:rgb(0.82,0.80,0.80) id:future value:rgb(0.52,0.80,0.80) id:Niagara value:rgb(0.42,0.72,0.20) id:Edmonton value:rgb(0.09,0.11,0.24) id:FraserValley value:rgb(0.91,0.21,0.08) id:Guelph value:rgb(0,0.36,0.56) id:Calgary value:rgb(0.82,0,0.11) id:Hamilton value:rgb(0.96,0.80,0.25) id:Saskatchewan value:rgb(0.92,0.76,0.61) id:Ottawa value:rgb(0.39,0.39,0.42) id:Montreal value:rgb(0.45,0.65,0.83) id:Scarborough value:rgb(0.18,0.16,0.15) id:Newfoundland value:rgb(0.68,0.58,0.40) id:Winnipeg value:rgb(0,0.68,0.68) ScaleMajor = start:2018 increment:1 gridcolor:majorGridColor LineData = at:2019 color:lineColor layer:back width:0.66 #First CEBL season • – Text Positions Define $Up = shift:(,1) Define $Center = anchor:from align:left shift:(300,) Define $Left = anchor:from align:right shift:(-1,) Define $LeftIn = anchor:from align:left shift:(35,) Define $LeftMargin = anchor:from align:left shift:(3,) Define $UpLeft = anchor:from align:right shift:(-1,1) Define $UpLeftIn = anchor:from align:left shift:(-1,1) Define $UpLeftMargin = anchor:from align:left shift:(1,1) Define $Right = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,) Define $RightMargin = anchor:till align:right shift:(-2,) Define $RightIn = anchor:till align:right shift:(-0,) Define $UpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,1) Define $UpRightMargin = anchor:till align:right shift:(-2,1) Define $UpRightIn = anchor:till align:right shift:(-25,1) Define $UpUpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,10) Define $Down = shift:(,-7) Define $Downx2 = shift:(,-20) Define $DownRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,-10) Define $DownLeft = anchor:from align:right shift:(-2,-10) Define $DownLeftMargin = anchor:from align:left shift:(1,-10) Define $t = textcolor Define $champ = text:"•" $t:white fontsize:XL shift:(-20,-10) Define $I = text:"(I)" TextData = pos:(25,100) textcolor:black fontsize:M tabs:(40-left) text:"NBLC^National Basketball League of Canada" text:"•^Championship season" BarData = bar:Niagara bar:Edmonton bar:FraserValley bar:Guelph bar:Hamilton bar:Saskatchewan bar:Ottawa bar:Montreal bar:Scarborough bar:Newfoundland bar:Winnipeg PlotData = color:notpro $t:black width:20 fontsize:M mark:(line, black) anchor:middle # other options are anchor:from anchor:till align:center # other options are align:left align:right shift:(0,-7) bar:Niagara from:2018 till:2019 text:"(NBLC)" bar:Niagara from:2019 till:end color:Niagara $t:white $LeftMargin text:"Niagara River Lions" bar:Niagara at:2025 $champ mark:(line,Niagara) bar:Niagara at:2026 $champ mark:(line,Niagara) bar:Edmonton from:2019 till:end color:Edmonton $t:white $LeftMargin text:"Edmonton Stingers" bar:Edmonton at:2021 $champ mark:(line,Edmonton) bar:Edmonton at:2022 $champ mark:(line,Edmonton) bar:FraserValley from:2019 till:2023 color:FraserValley $t:white $LeftMargin text:"Fraser Valley Bandits" bar:FraserValley from:2023 till:end color:FraserValley $t:White $LeftMargin text:"Vancouver Bandits" bar:Guelph from:2019 till:2023 color:Guelph $t:white $LeftMargin text:"Guelph Nighthawks" bar:Guelph from:2023 till:end color:Calgary $t:White $LeftMargin text:"Calgary Surge" bar:Hamilton from:2019 till:2023 color:Hamilton $t:black $LeftMargin text:"Hamilton Honey Badgers" bar:Hamilton from:2023 till:end color:Hamilton $t:black $LeftMargin text:"Brampton Honey Badgers" bar:Hamilton at:2023 $champ mark:(line,Hamilton) bar:Saskatchewan from:2019 till:end color:Saskatchewan $t:black $LeftMargin text:"Saskatchewan Rattlers" bar:Saskatchewan at:2020 $champ mark:(line,Saskatchewan) bar:Ottawa from:2020 till:end color:Ottawa $t:white $LeftMargin text:"Ottawa Blackjacks" bar:Montreal from:2022 till:end color:Montreal $t:black $LeftMargin text:"Montreal Alliance" bar:Scarborough from:2022 till:end color:Scarborough $t:white $LeftMargin text:"Scarborough Shooting Stars" bar:Scarborough at:2024 $champ mark:(line,Scarborough) bar:Newfoundland from:2022 till:2023 color:Newfoundland $t:white $LeftMargin text:"Newfoundland Growlers" bar:Winnipeg from:2023 till:end color:Winnipeg $t:white $LeftMargin text:"Winnipeg Sea Bears" == Championships ==

Executives , league executives include: • Mike Morreale, Commissioner and Co-Founder • John Lashway, Deputy Commissioner, Strategy and Communications • Josh Knoester, Chief Operating Officer • Joe Raso, Senior Director of Basketball Operations Players The CEBL's main focus will be on showcasing and developing Canadian talent in basketball: Players were expected to be drawn from collegiate alumni (including U Sports and U.S. NCAA basketball), players with experience in other international leagues, as well as members of the Canadian national team. The salary cap is $8,000 per team per game. Broadcasting During the first season, games were primarily streamed on an in-house platform known as CEBL.tv; the league stated that it would provide the necessary means for each team to produce "a really good official and professional looking live stream that we can share without any kind of limitations to who can see it." The league considered the possibility of selling television rights to its championship to a traditional broadcaster. On June 12, 2019, the CEBL announced that CBC Sports would stream all remaining games of the inaugural season on its digital platforms. It subsequently announced in November 2019 that CBC Sports had agreed to a three-year deal, which will also see eight games (seven regular-season games and the championship game) per-season aired on CBC Television. In 2021 the league launched its CEBL+ streaming service. All games are streamed through the platform, with games in Canada streamed for free. For the 2020 season, the CEBL also began streaming games on Twitch. On August 7, the CEBL and Mediapro announced new rights deals in the Asia-Pacific and Oceania regions, such as Astro (Malaysia), Fox Sports Australia, SingTel, Sportscast (Taiwan), and TapGo (Philippines). A feature-length documentary about the 2020 "Summer Series", produced by Ward 1 Studios, was broadcast May 29, 2021 on CBC. Ahead of the 2023 season, the CEBL announced a broadcast rights agreement with Bell Media. Games aired on TSN in English and RDS in French, with a "game of the week" package on TSN throughout the season, RDS particularly carrying Montreal Alliance games, and all games streaming on TSN+. On March 3, 2026, the CEBL announced that the CBC would again be the leagues broadcast partner for 2026–2030. Select games would be shown on CBC Television, and all games would be carried on CBC Gem and the CBC Sports channel on YouTube. == References ==