Bandits, Stingers Face-Off in All-West CEBL Championship Final

The Stingers, who boast the most productive offence in the league at 89.5 points a game and are riding a six-game win streak, defeated the Ottawa BlackJacks, 88-75, Saturday afternoon to advance to their first CEBL Championship. The Bandits took down the Hamilton Honey Badgers on Saturday by a score of 76-75 off an Olu Ashaolu bucket in Elam Ending time. 

The Stingers enter Sunday’s game with only one loss in the Summer Series – an opening night defeat at the hands of the Fraser Valley Bandits. The Bandits cruised to a 113-110 victory on July 26. With their past history, the Bandits know they are capable of toppling the CEBL’s top team. However, the Stingers will come out hungry looking to rectify that opening night defeat.  

Sunday’s CEBL Summer Series championship final between Edmonton and Fraser Valley tips-off at 12 p.m. ET (10 a.m. MT, 9 a.m. PT) and will be nationally televised by CBC and live-streamed on Twitch, CBCSports.ca and the CBC Gem App.

This is the first Championship berth for both the Edmonton Stingers and the Fraser Valley Bandits. The Stingers nearly made it to the finals last year, dropping an 85-83 heartbreaker to the eventual champions, the Saskatchewan Rattlers, in the semifinals at Championship Weekend. Fast forward nearly a full calendar year and the hottest team to end the regular season is looking as polished as ever at the Summer Series. With a returning cast of stars that includes Xavier Moon, Jordan Baker and Travis Daniels, the continued development of Mathieu Kamba and Brody Clarke, as well as welcome additions like Mambi Diawara, the Stingers are a formidable group. 

Factor in the fact that head coach and general manager Jermaine Small has led Edmonton to a 16-4 record during his tenure as head coach, and the Stingers have the look of a team that is ready for its moment on the big stage. 

The Fraser Valley Bandits are the Cinderella story of the Summer Series. After finishing last in the standings a year ago, the Bandits have flipped the script. Given this is Fraser Valley’s first time in the CEBL postseason, the Bandits will look to lean on team veterans such as Junior Cadougan, Kyle Johnson, Jahenns Manigat and Olu Ashaolu to lead the team to the promised land.  

The Bandits are the lone team to defeat the Edmonton Stingers during the round robin, but the Stingers improved with each and every game they played. Although the Bandits own the modest head-to-head advantage, the Stingers are an imposing team when it comes to owning the glass and protecting the paint. Big man Daniels leads all players with 1.6 blocks per game, while Baker leads the league with 9.9 rebounds per game.

With Fraser Valley adopting a small-ball approach to rebounding, the Bandits’ guard corps will face the physically taxing task of keeping Edmonton off the boards, and equally, of avoiding an elite shot blocker like Daniels when coming into the paint.

Today’s championship final will feature the two furthest west teams in the CEBL. 

More than 130 million new viewers will be able to watch the CEBL championship game thanks to distribution agreements secured by MEDIAPRO Canada, the international media rights and production partner of the Canadian Elite Basketball League. The finals will be available to viewers in Australia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. 

The finals will be televised across Canada by CBC, as well as live-streamed on CBC Gem, cbcsports.ca, and on Twitch.tv (CEBLeague). Fans can catch Sunday’s CEBL Championship game on CBC and all of those online platforms starting at 12 noon ET (10 a.m. MT, 9 a.m. PT). 

Fox Sports, the top sports broadcaster in Australia with more than two million subscribers, Astro SuperSport, Malaysia’s dominant pay-TV sports broadcaster, and Singapore’s Singtel mioSports channels will be airing the games throughout Asia-Pacific territories.

In the Philippines where there are 75 million smartphones in use, the free TapGo app will deliver the games to a country that is renowned for its passion for basketball and is the third biggest market for the NBA behind the United States and China. In Taiwan, Sportcast, operated by CSTV Group, will telecast the three games. 

MEDIAPRO Canada previously facilitated the live streaming of all 26 CEBL Summer Series games on Twitch.tv, the world’s leading live, interactive streaming service for gaming, sports, entertainment, and music with 17.5 million users. Games are available on the twitch.tv/cebleague channel. Twitch recently launched a standalone sports category, featuring other top professional basketball leagues, including the NBA G League, Australia’s National Basketball League, and Brazil’s Novo Basquete.