The Fraser Valley Bandits’ streak of futility is over.
The heretofore winless British Columbians popped their CEBL cherry with a 101-89 victory over the hometown Saskatchewan
Rattlers on a cheery yet perfunctory night at the SaskTel Centre. I say
perfunctory because pretty much everyone seemed to be going through the
motions, to some degree. This included fans, staff, and players—everyone except
the Fraser Valley Bandits.
The perfunctory tone was set early on with a wholly
routine pregame. Really, it all feels quite predictable now. As the Rattlers
entered for their warmup, they were greeted with a golf clap. The Venom Girls
smiled vapidly and waved their pompoms and fully embodied the anachronism that they
are. During their pregame lordotic capering, your correspondent watched the people
watching the Venom Girls. The faces throughout the stands were impassive, the
husbands trying to look disinterested, as if they were more concerned with the intricacies of the choreography, their wives betraying a dejected curiosity.
With Canada Day upcoming, those in attendance were
encouraged to sing along proudly to "Oh, Canada". Your correspondent decided that, for once in his life, he
would not be too cool for school, and would do just what the announcer commanded.
Rest assured he was the only person in his section who sang along—at full
throat, no less—and drew some stares as he stood on guard off-key.
The Rattlers’ play was uninspired in the first
quarter, and the 0-9 Bandits were little better. The first ten minutes saw an
inordinate amount of shots rimming around and lipping out of the basket,
especially for the Rattlers, who were feckless in the cylinder. And picking up
where they left off last game, the Rattlers missed foul shot after foul shot.
Even Gregor, the irrepressible hype-man, seemed lethargic as he made his way through his promos.
Sluggishness is never good, but its contagious, depressive effects are compounded immeasurably when it is coming
from a man with “hype” in his job title.
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| The big man Chris McLaughlin preps to make a free-throw |
The Bandits led 21-16 going into the second. The
Rattlers had a bit more zest, drawing closer thanks to the virile ball-handling
of Bruce Massey. But Bruce could only do so much. A case in point: on two occasions
he threw up picturesque alley-oop set-ups, only to have his intended target
miss the ball. The Bandits made their buckets when they needed them, and they were no slouches on defense, either, with Jamal Ray,
the Texarkana Phantom, always playing solid on the ball. As time wore on, Ray and his
teammates wore the Rattlers down. Chad Posthumous, whom the obnoxious bearded
loudmouth two seats to your correspondent's right refers to as “Big Country” due to his vague resemblance
to former Vancouver Grizzlies' standout Bryant Reeves, looked dead tired. Posthumous was hoovering
breaths like his life depended on it.
Meanwhile, official-looking guys wearing black suits
and earpieces combed through the rows of the lower bowl, offering freebie tickets to fans with
less-than-ideal views. Your correspondent was propositioned with seats in
section R, but summarily refused, explaining to the man in black brandishing the better tickets that moving
would be a “disruption of the psyche.” This occasioned a nonplussed look from
the man in black.
Also decked in black was Ssswish, Saskatchewan's favorite anthropomorphic snake. Tonight, in the spirit
of the graduation season, he donned a cap and gown, and raced out onto the court at a
break in play to collect felicitations from the crowd. He got a few cheers, but this segment, much
like a liberal arts degree, didn’t really lead to much of anything.
The Rattlers’ attacks didn’t go anywhere
either. They had pulled within a handful near the end of the second quarter,
but the Bandits drained some clutch threes before the buzzer and lead 43-33 at
the half. It was tough to gauge the audience’s reaction, as your correspondent’s
entire section had cleared out, those seated around him having cashed in on the opportunity to upgrade their
seats. They had mostly migrated over to the seats parallel with the court;
obviously, the league’s black-suit-and-earpiece guys wanted to fill the hard-camera
sides of the arena to make the crowd look denser for TV. Your correspondent didn't mind the added legroom. Moreover, the obnoxious bearded loudmouth had moved well out of earshot.
The halftime show was a magic act. A somewhat dotty prestidigitator
named Ryan Boucher took to center court and started by having a random guy
shoot baskets. After the guy made a basket on his fifth try, Boucher had the
guy pull a sheet of paper out of an envelope which bore a "prediction" of how
many baskets he would have made. The sheet read, of course, the number one. Boucher transitioned into
a follow-up bit where he brought out a bullwhip and started lashing out at airborne playing
cards or something. This culminated in him whipping the card that the random
guy had earlier drawn, I think, but honestly, the magic show was too far away
to really register.
The Rattlers just couldn’t crack the whip in the second
half. Early in the third, Marlon Johnson took a foul and a technical to boot, which
lead to a three-point play for the Bandits. On the other end, the home team continued to miss
from the charity stripe—in fact, the fouls they drew turned into so many botched
free-throws, it was the Rattlers who seemed to be the charitable ones. Massey
continued to make valiant drives to the hoop, but time and again his shots
circumnavigated the rim and then popped out. The Bandits, meanwhile,
consistently scored points in the paint and pulled away. Clearly, it was their game to lose.
If the Rattlers’ weren’t entirely present on the
court, neither was the promotional team on its periphery. The various themed cameras were wholly absent
until the third, when Flex Cam made an unremarkable tour through the arena.
Kiss Cam failed even more pronouncedly. Even as Gregor started into all the innuendo that comes with the initiation of Kiss Cam, the Jumbo-Tron remained locked on a static generic CEBL graphic, and then cut rather listlessly to the Rattlers’ bench. All told, only one couple appeared on camera for the cursory serving of communally-viewed
canoodling—and not a particularly handsome couple at that.
Fraser Valley was up 69-58 going into the fourth. The
Rattlers free-throw shooting didn’t get any better, and it became clear that
the Bandits weren’t afraid to play hard in the paint, because a shooting foul
would likely only cost them a single point at most. To watch the Rattlers’ free-throw woes is to encounter a strange sort of melancholy, and to invite it upon one's self. It’s as if the team has developed a psychological complex around free-throws. Meanwhile, the Bandits just simply pulverized the paint, steered
by the sheer acromegalic force of Chris McLaughlin, the 6’10 center who would
end up leading the Bandits in scoring. The Rattlers looked enfeebled up against
this mountainous long-hair.
The title of Fan of the Game was bestowed upon a sheepish,
elderly woman, red-faced with palpable shame as the camera fixed itself upon
her. The choice seemed fitting on this night, as the Rattlers’ and all associated personnel went through the motions in a losing effort. That is to say, the choice seemed wholly perfunctory.
When the buzzer sounded, the Fraser Valley
Bandits had a 101-89 victory. The fans filed out dutifully, their smiles enduring, but rather emptily so. Though the home team’s loss may have left them mildly disappointed, it might just be the best of all possible outcomes. That the league's only
winless team picked up its first victory by outdoing the team with the best
attendance on its home court is nothing short of a blessing. It ensures that there
is at least a semblance of competitiveness throughout the CEBL, which is ultimately
positive for a fledgling league.
