The Canadian Elite Basketball League is expanding to Canada’s capital, with the Ottawa BlackJacks set to join the CEBL in 2020.
The BlackJacks will become the league’s seventh team and play at the TD Place Arena, former home of the National Hockey League’s Ottawa Senators.
They join the six holdovers from the CEBL’s inaugural season, including Abbotsford’s Fraser Valley Bandits. The other teams are the Edmonton Stingers, Guelph Nighthawks, Hamilton Honey Badgers, Niagara River Lions and the reigning champion Saskatchewan Rattlers.
“Ottawa/Gatineau and the surrounding area has a history of basketball excellence,” said CEBL commissioner Mike Morreale. “The game was invented in Almonte, which is about 40-minutes west of the city. We look forward to bringing a family-oriented, basketball and entertainment experience to the Arena at TD Place. This relationship ensures the sustainability of the team and delivers another club for the legion of sports fans in the Ottawa area to rally behind.”
The team is named after the most elusive jackrabbit on the planet, a creature than can reach speeds in excess of 70 kilometres per hour. Tremendous leapers, blackjacks can jump more than 10 feet, the same height as a basketball net.
For more info, see cebl.ca
