Calgary to get brand new professional basketball team
Posted Aug 17, 2022 2:05 pm.
Last Updated Aug 17, 2022 2:07 pm.
The Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) is coming to Calgary, with the Guelph franchise moving to the Stampede City.
The CEBL announced Wednesday that the new team will begin play at the WinSport Event Centre in 2023.
Commissioner and league co-founder Mike Morreale said that they’ve had their eyes on the city for some time now.
“Calgary has been one of our target markets for a long time and relocating a franchise from our smallest market to Canada’s third-largest city will allow the team to remain financially competitive as our league continues to experience tremendous growth,” said Morreale said in a statement.
“Several potential ownership groups have expressed an interest in bringing a team to Calgary, but none has been able to meet our criteria for ownership. The league will continue to own and operate this franchise as we do nine of our 10 teams until a qualified individual or group emerges,” Morreale added.
NEWS: Guelph Nighthawks will relocate to Calgary, Alberta starting with the 2023 season. The franchise, which will play at @WinSportCanada, will be rebranded with a new nickname, logo, and colours to be publicly unveiled this fall.
????: https://t.co/G17WBKdxYr#LetsBall #OurGame pic.twitter.com/uPDFvxYTBW
— CEBL (@CEBLeague) August 17, 2022
Calgary won’t keep the Nighthawks name, and the team will make an announcement when they have a new name, colours, and logo in place.
The CEBL has had basketball teams play in the WinSport Event Centre in the past, where the league staged its competition for the Basketball Champions League Americas (BCLA) in March 2022. The BCLA’s annually pit the top pro teams from Central and South America.
The addition of this new basketball team from the CEBL marks Calgary’s seventh professional sports team, joining the recently added AHL Wranglers hockey team.
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The team from Guelph, the Nighthawks, are coming off a 2022 season in which they posted a 10-10 record and finished seventh in the 10-team CEBL. They upset Fraser Valley, which finished fourth in the regular season, in the opening round of the playoffs before falling to Niagara in the quarterfinals.
The Nighthawks posted an overall record of 25-37 (.403) during the franchise’s four seasons (2019: 6-14; 2020: 3-3; 2021: 5-9; 2022: 11-11).
The CEBL launched in 2018 with six teams in four provinces, and despite the pandemic, it has expanded to 10 teams in six provinces, making it the largest pro sports league in Canada with further expansion in the planning stages.
The CEBL has the highest percentage of Canadian players of any pro league in the country with 71 per cent of its current team rosters being Canadian. Their season runs from May through August.
More information is available at the CEBL website.
