Call them the Vancouver Bandits.

On Tuesday, the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) announced the Langley-based Fraser Valley Bandits team has been bought by Kevin Dhaliwal, a local resident who lives in Langley’s Brookswood, and Mission’s Bryan Slusarchuk, and rebranded.

The renamed Vancouver Bandits will continue to play at Langley Events Centre, where the Bandits played the 2022 season following three seasons in Abbotsford.

Vancouver Bandits will operate under the umbrella of Bandits Sports & Entertainment (BSE), which is an ownership group jointly led by Dhaliwal, founder and president of Essence Properties, and Slusarchuk, co-founder of K92 Mining Inc. and principal of SluzCap.

“Bryan and I are thrilled to align to create more opportunities to bring youth and families closer to a sport that has captured the hearts and minds of Canadians,” Dhaliwal said, calling the deal “exciting.”

“The CEBL is the most exciting thing to happen in Canadian pro sports in decades and the Bandits are a marquee franchise within the league,” Slusarchuk said, adding he and his partner plan “to put gasoline on that fire.”

A new energy, fuelled by the west. 🔥

Introducing your Vancouver Bandits.

Learn more at https://t.co/jtwemGSt8T pic.twitter.com/vPizfZSiAV

— Vancouver Bandits (@vancitybandits) September 13, 2022

CEBL Commissioner and co-founder Mike Morreale told the press conference at LEC the Bandits join Scarborough as the second league franchise operated by outside ownership, and are the first of the original six founding members to be purchased by new owners.

Morreale said the name change reflected the “outreach” of the team.

“This is not an Abbotsford team, it’s not a Mission team, not a Langley team, its not a Vancouver team, it’s the entire area, the Fraser Valley included,” Morreale said.

He said the team was staying at the Langley Events Centre because “this is the best mid-size arena in the area. The team deserves to play here [and] the fans deserve to see it here.”

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The CEBL was founded in 2018 as a single entity owned league with six franchises.

Today, the CEBL has 10 franchises located in six provinces stretching from British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador.