CEBL Championship Weekend: The Final

On the Canadian Elite Basketball League’s first-ever Championship Sunday, the host Saskatchewan Rattlers met the Hamilton Honey Badgers at the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon. It would be yet another chapter in the annals of classic Hamilton/Saskatchewan sports matchups, alongside the 1989 and 2013 Grey Cup games. Would this be another Saskatchewan victory over a hapless Hamilton side?

The pregame posed other questions as well. For instance, why was Rattlers’ guard Michael Linklater limbering up with the team in full uniform? Had he not, after all, just retired from professional basketball the previous day? Apparently, the pull of the championship game was too strong for Mr. Linklater to resist, and here he was back among his teammates. He looked dialled in during the warmup, poised to write a dramatic final chapter to what had already been an inspiring season.

Less inspiring were the Edmonton fans who had returned for day two. In particular, a boisterous, haggard trio of Edmontonian males in full Stingers’ regalia plunked themselves down in the fourth row. They made it clear early on that they had realigned their allegiances. Now they were cheering for the Hamilton Honey Badgers. In the pregame, venerable Rattlers’ mascot Ssswish spotted them and moseyed over for some good-natured joshing. He staked his hands on his hips and wagged a finger at the Edmontonians. The Edmontonians responded with a hail of imprecations, repeatedly directing the anthropomorphic snake to “suck it!” with reference to their genitalia. A vital question presents itself here: who is more pitiable? The person dressed as an anthropomorphic snake who is trying to provide wholesome entertainment, or the paunchy Albertan longhairs imploring said snake-costumed person to forcibly fellate them? One abiding truth springs eternal: it is the Albertans who are deplorable.

Hype-man Gregor assumed his accustomed dominion over the microphone and started with a survey. When he asked the crowd who was cheering for the Rattlers, he got a robust response from the home supporters. When he asked who was cheering for the Honey Badgers, he got some feral braying from the three guys from Edmonton. Some of the Hamilton players noticed and smiled sheepishly over at the Albertans. Had it not been for these dishevelled Edmontonians, the Honey Badgers would have been entirely without supporters. Even the scattered Niagara fans from the previous day seemed to be siding with the Rattlers.

Also back for the final was the female ref who had made semi-final #2 all her own the previous day. Mercifully, she seemed to have been placed in a subordinate position to the head referee. Would she still manage to make the championship game all about her?

Some particularly percussive pyro issued from the baskets, sending a sharp peal through the arena. It was clear that tipoff was approaching. Dignitaries made their way to centre court—a high-ranking chief of the Saskatchewan First Nations followed by premiere Scott Moe, who huffed and chuffed his way out, bringing up the rear. The ceremonial tip happened with little ceremony, and then the real tip commenced. The CEBL final was underway.

The finalists take their positions (with Venom Girls slithering in-between)

The Rattlers went for the razzle-dazzle immediately, with Shaq Keith putting up an alley-oop for Big Chad Posthumus. Posthumus went with the relatively conservative lay-up finish, and the Rattlers led 2-0. Three minutes in, however, Hamilton had a 7-6 lead. Perhaps they were aided by the three bedraggled Edmontonians. As the home crowd silenced itself while the Rattlers shot free throws, the Edmontonians took the opportunity to shout potentially distracting wisecracks. Perhaps the term “wisecracks” is a bit generous, because the comments they made weren’t exactly witty barbs. Early on, the doughy, bespectacled Edmontonian with the longest hair among his peers screamed “I’m gonna boo you louder this time!” for the second of two foul shots. It was the cleverest comment he would make all day.

Early action from the CEBL championship game

Hamilton had their fair share of ball-control early on, but to the Rattlers’ good fortune, the Ontarian side was shooting terribly. The score was 12-7 Rattlers at 4:14 of the first. However, fouls were racking up for Saskatchewan standouts Shaquille Keith and Marlon Johnson. The Hamiltonians did decently at the charity stripe, and took a 23-21 lead into the second quarter.

In the early going of the second, the Rattlers managed to pull within a point. Then the Honey Badgers’ cave-mannish forward Murphy Burnatowski dropped down a three, and Hamilton led by two scores, 30-26. This occasioned unruly cheers from the actual Neanderthals—that is, the Edmontonians—in the crowd.

The ensuing TV timeout saw the perfunctory promotional shot, for which Gregor trotted out a squab, generic fan. Gregor then announced that the half-court shot, which had been replaced with a more manageable free-throw due to futile fan efforts early in the season, was making its return. The squab fan gathered himself and then let loose his mightiest shot. It didn’t even make it to the cylinder beneath the hoop. Promptly, the Edmontonians began to chant “One more shot! One more shot!” That allowance, however, was not made for the squab Saskatchewanese fan.

The Rattlers came out of the TV timeout on a mission. Negus Webster Chan drained two big three-point attempts, giving the Rattlers the lead and prompting Hamilton bench boss Chantal Vallee to call a timeout. The Rattlers faithful was going wild, and the upper-middle class trash seated at the baseline were leading the charge. In fact, the PA announcer had to issue a second warning about use of profanity in-game.

When play resumed, the Rattlers tightened their grip on the contest. Shane Osayande put down a big jam, stoking the crowd. Negus followed up by tickling the twine with another three, and the home squad took a solid 42-34 lead.

Still, the Stingers-cum-Badgers fans wouldn’t back down. When the Rattlers’ Ryan Ejim drew a foul and stepped up to the line, they persisted with their heckling. “Your dentist says you don’t floss enough!” screamed the bespectacled longhair. Perhaps there is some wit in this comment that your correspondent has failed to grasp.

More impactful was the substitution announced in the final minutes of the second quarter. Michael Linklater had stepped up to center-court, and was announced into the game. He had indeed come out of retirement after just one day. He received another standing ovation. Given the twenty-four hour whirlwind drama of his retirement and return, one thing seems quite clear: Linklater is not shy about having the spotlight cast upon him. Your correspondent does not, however, say this to Linklater’s discredit. Truth be told, the Linklater story is that of a man finally getting the platform he deserves. Moreover, he is using that platform to do good: in the abstract, he is an inspiration for First Nation youth; more tangibly, he is spearheading efforts to develop basketball courts in underprivileged communities. So yes, he should seek the spotlight, and he should bask in it. Honestly, we could do much worse in terms of athletic role-models.

At halftime, the Rattlers led 48-41. The fans shouted their approval as the buzzer sounded. They could feel that something special was not out of the realm of possibility. But there was also an infinitesimal, intestinal angst. Most resident Saskatchewanese, after all, have a deep and abiding relationship with disappointment.  

The halftime entertainment was yet another DJ. Your correspondent didn’t catch the DJ’s name and is deeply regretting it. This gentleman, who rocked a glittery jacket and a Mohawk haircut, may have actually been the best DJ of the season. He possessed neither the glad-to-be-here desperation of Rattlers’ regular DJ Charly Hustle, nor the too-cool-for-school insouciance of Raptors’ DJ 4 Korners. He had a certain intangible quality that seemed lacking or altogether absent in the various halftime acts that appeared throughout the season. Maybe it was the fact that he was actually an entertainer. He had lots of energy, but not too much. He knew how to get a sufficient rise out of the crowd. For instance, early on in his set, he dropped down out of view behind the turntables, raised his legs in the air, and began to applaud with his shoes. This brought smiles to the faces of fans of all ages. He also knew what to play. He started with “We Will Rock You,” and had even some septuagenarians singing along (your correspondent refers here to his seatmate/pater familias).

This really roused certain pockets of the crowd. Some milfs from Edmonton, for instance, were particularly inspired. They accumulated at the baseline, and began dancing without restraint. Even Hammer, the Hamilton mascot who had been conspicuously reserved during both the semi-final and final, got into the act. He scooted over to the little party at the baseline and got in the middle of the milfs, dancing unreservedly. Apparently, he’d shed all his earlier inhibitions. He wound up stealing the show.

A Badger among Cougars

When the lights came up and play resumed, the SaskTel Centre thrummed with an even more palpable excitement. Could there be another championship banner hanging from the rafters?

The consideration, of course, was premature. Hamilton made a 9-2 run to start the third quarter and tied up the score three minutes in. The Honey Badgers were hungry, none more so than their standout Ricky Tarrant Jr. He won an epic battle for the ball with multiple Rattlers, and converted the victory into an important bucket to keep the score even.

It took an errant elbow to the face of Triple D, Demetrius Denzel-Dyson, to stop the Badgers’ charge. In the aftermath, Negus netted a three to make it 57-52. On the sidelines, Coach Vallee complained vehemently to the female ref, and this occasioned a long pause in play. Vallee’s grievances must have sunken in, for on the ensuing Hamilton possession, a soft foul was called on Shane Osayande. The home crowd initiated a chant of “ref, you suck!”

The big man Osayande could not be held back, however. He reclaimed the ball in due course and then jammed it home, drawing a foul as well. He put the free throw through the hoop to make it 62-53. Now the hometown horde was feeling it even more pronouncedly.

Michael Linklater came back in the game with 4:20 remaining. He promptly took the ball and made an arcing, acrobatic layup. The crowd went buck wild. Soon after, Linklater drew a foul. It was now 68-56 with 2:38 left in the third. The crowd was getting giddy. Hamilton called another timeout to regroup.

When play resumed, Hamilton pushed closer. For the Rattlers, Linklater acted as steward of the offense, leading it up court. The crowd loved it. Linklater, however, didn’t seem especially keen on distributing the ball. On at least one occasion, he drove to the hoop precipitously and was rebuffed by the Hamilton D. It seemed as if Linklater might have been getting caught up in the increasingly Rudy-esque spirit of the moment.

This allowed Hamilton to get back within range. Burnatowski drew a foul and converted his shots, narrowing the deficit to just 7, the score now 70-63. When the Rattlers got free throws of their own, the Edmontonian fans were ready to play verbal defense from afar. “Your driving skills need improvement!” shouted the grubby greaser with glasses. This prompted an exchange of puzzled glances and shrugs between your correspondent and a young woman seated in his row. Again, being Albertan is more about pure animal force than it is about wit.

The home side went into the fourth up by double digits, 73-63. The atmosphere was solemn. Things looked good, yes, but there were so many developments—so many disappointments—that could still take place. One of those potentialities was an epic Rattlers’ meltdown.

Hamilton managed to trim the lead to 8 with about four minutes gone. At this point, Negus Webster Chan pulled up for a three. As he let loose the jumper, he might as well have been plunging the dagger. If this went in, it was game over. The ball kissed off the rim, and then skittered into the meaty palms of Shane Osayande. Osayande slammed it home with a massive, authoritative dunk to make it 81-71. The crowd went into a blissful conniption. It was cut short, however, by the irrepressible Ricky Tarrant Jr., who raced back up court and put down a prompt two.

On the sidelines, Hammer was really holding his position, dancing generically in a very limited radius behind his team’s bench. It was if he was atoning for his outburst of nebulously sexual enthusiasm vis-à-vis the Edmontonian milfs at halftime. It was also as if he was getting an early whiff of impending defeat. It was sad to watch.

On the court, the Rattlers’ Captain Campbell put down a three to make it 87-76. The home fans stood with every basket. The potentialities were narrowing now. A pair of Mounties processed the trophy to the “commissioner’s suite.” The teams answered each other basket for basket, and the margin of difference didn’t change. In the final minute, it was 94-83 for the home side. If the outcome wasn’t obvious Shaquille Keith made it so. In a timeout, he strolled out to centre-court facing the hard-camera side of the crowd, and began stoking the locals, flexing and peacocking. The home fans loved it. Hamilton inbounded the ball but didn’t push the issue. They let the clock wind down before attempting a final, meaningless three as the buzzer sounded. It didn’t go.

The Rattlers congregate at centre-court in triumph

The ball bounded away into oblivion, and the Rattlers raced out onto the court. The Venom Girls sashayed out with pom-poms roiling. The lower bowl undulated with tendril-like limbs reaching skyward in rapture. Ruddy joy swept through players and fans and Venom Girls as if carried by a sirocco not of earth. That several thousand people can publicly congregate in unabashed joy, even fleetingly, in a post-Trump, post-Democracy world is a small marvel unto itself.

The Rattlers quavered collectively at centre-court for a while, and then one man emerged above it all. It was Michael Linklater, hoisted onto the shoulders of his teammates. He punched a fist out in the air, and the crowd punctuated the gesture with a wholehearted cheer. The DJ played DJ Khaled et al.’s “All I Do is Win.” Shaquille Keith started to get low, low, low at centre court. Championship hats were distributed to the Rattlers’ players. The Rattlers made a slow migration toward the commissioner’s suite. They stopped underneath the basket, grinning, embracing, and slapping high-fives. The big man Chad Posthumus hung off the rim in the NCAA March Madness tradition, grinning babyishly beneath his championship cap.

Chad Posthumus hangs off the rim while the victory sinks in

Once the Rattlers’ had reached the commissioner’s suite, there came the obligatory speeches from league luminaries. Greg Jockims was given a rare opportunity to speak and, standing akimbo, offered that “good people win championships.” Now, that may not always be true—your correspondent is reminded, for instance, of the 1989 Oakland Athletics—but, at that moment in the SaskTel Centre, it seemed to be a certainty. Seeing the well-earned smiles of Marlon, Negus, Linklater, Shaq, and Campbell, you had to at least entertain the belief that good things sometimes do happen to good people.

The Rattlers raise the CEBL Championship

The trophy was handed over to Alex Campbell and confetti was all at once expectorated into the sky. The crowd cheered at full throat. The DJ spun “We are the Champions.” Your correspondent joined in at the chorus, assuming that everyone in attendance would be doing the same. Your correspondent was completely wrong, as he found himself the only one singing. Most attendees were working their way closer to the team at court level. It is, of course, human nature to gravitate toward the winners.

And by that measure, no one seemed more human than the Edmontonians. They had shimmied down onto the court, getting within selfie range of the trophy. The story of their weekend had a fundamentally human trajectory: they had started by cheering enthusiastically for the Edmonton Stingers. When the Stingers lost, they switched their allegiances so as to countervail the home Saskatchewan side, cheering for the opposing Hamilton squad out of spite. And then when Hamilton lost and there was only one team left standing, that being their despised Rattlers, they wanted nothing else but to be near the champion. In the span of just two days, they went from zealots to haters and then ended up as submissives with respect to the conquerors. Maybe these Albertans aren’t Neanderthals after all. Maybe, in their pure pathos, they are the most resoundingly human of all of us.

Soon enough, the Rattlers carried their prize to the dressing room. Fans lingered giddily on the court. One of the trashy upper middle class guys, quintessentially true to form, got a picture of himself flanked by all the Venom Girls at centre-court. Other people, for whatever reason, were lining up for photos with the heavyset super-fan in the green hockey mask. It was fascinating to see how, after the championship has been won and the spoils have gone to the victor, everyone sort of drifts quickly back into their own cheery solipsism. It becomes all about personal positionality again—about pictures, postures, and private glories. But even to have been given that exultant thrill—that communitas—of being able to howl triumphantly and harmoniously with the pack, even just a few minutes, is a privilege. For that fleeting privilege alone, we must thank the Saskatchewan Rattlers enduringly.

CODA:

Perhaps what is most satisfying about the Saskatchewan Rattlers’ 2019 championship season is its distinct narrative arc. The Rattlers started the campaign as a winning unit that shot out the lights. Then they devolved into a hapless mix of ham-and-eggers that went on a lengthy losing streak. By the end of the season, however, they were able to reclaim their early magic. They seemed to have matured in the process, as well, and in the end found themselves with the CEBL trophy. When the team lost Bruce Massey, their offensive lynchpin, in midseason, the situation looked bleak. Roster patch-overs like Ali Haidar and Gentry Thomas just couldn’t fill the Massey-shaped hole. Nor could they make a bucket. But perhaps the primordial Rattlers like Alex Campbell and Marlon Johnson realized at some point that they didn’t need Massey to succeed. In fact, they may have come to know that they were better off without Massey and his more-than-occasional histrionics. Despite the turnover in personnel, the core Rattlers evidently realized that they could win with what they had left.

But there were so many other narrative arcs that emerged from the Rattlers’ 2019 season. There was, of course, the arrival of Michael Linklater. Maybe he didn’t score a lot of points, but he won too many little battles to count. He won a bigger battle, too, establishing a platform for himself as an indigenous athlete. His on-court career may be ending, but his days as a role model for youth—indigenous or otherwise—are really just picking up steam. Almost as importantly, 2019 was the story of Linklater going out a champion. Linklater got his fair share of newsprint ink this season, but just as captivating were the other Rattler-related nano-narratives. There was, for instance, Marlon Johnson singlehandedly making the Rattlers into Saskatoon’s newest home team when he roused a theretofore tepid opening night crowd with one fourth-quarter tomahawk dunk way back in May. Moreover, there was the story of Saskatchewan getting to enjoy not one but two basketball championships over the course of a couple months—not just the Rattlers but, before that, the Raptors. Perhaps a lesser known fact is that this is the second pro basketball championship in Saskatoon’s history. Indeed, the Saskatoon Slam won the first and only championship from the first iteration of Canada’s NBL back in 1993. Edmonton may putatively be the “City of the Champions,” but in the context of minor league basketball, Saskatoon just might be able to stake a legitimate claim to that title.

Your correspondent would like to close this blog by offering some apologies and concessions. The first of these would be dropping the “your correspondent” shtick. With that out of the way, I would like to apologize to any of the fans and players that I may have fat-shamed throughout the season. Personally, I want to live in a world where all body types are admissible, because honestly, constantly staring at toned abs and glutes quickly grows even more tiresome than it is humbling. I also want to apologize, if applicable, for any instances where I slut-shamed or otherwise disparaged the Venom Girls, even subtly. Even though I think the whole cheerleader thing is a bit of a sports anachronism, these young women clearly put a massive amount of effort into their routines and related promotional endeavors. Even when these routines received lukewarm receptions from the viewing public, the Venom Girls’ smiles never faded. Sure, the smiles looked a bit painted-on, but even maintaining feigned happiness is better than most of us are capable of in our dreary, day-to-day lives. I should also apologize for any mockery or outright scorn I directed at mascot Ssswish or Hype-man Gregor. Sure, some—nay, most—of the promotional vignettes they participated in were asinine, but these two did yeoman’s work with what they were given to work with throughout the season, and for that they deserve kudos.  I will not, however, apologize for my ongoing queer reading of Ssswish and (eventually) Gregor as well. This was strictly an intellectual exercise and never intended as “queer-shaming.” Honestly, this queer reading was a bit of red herring. One of the fundamental strengths of mascots is that they are ultimately and paradoxically both pansexual and asexual at the same time, just another one of the many dichotomies these inherently liminal beings possess the power to collapse.

Finally, I’d like to apologize for the instances in which I referred to the CEBL as “minor-league” or “bush-league” basketball. The CEBL may be small and regional, but it was driven by ambitions that are admirably big. Commissioner Mike Morreale should be proud of what he and his team have accomplished in year one. These motivating ambitions should continue to grow. I sincerely hope there is a next year for the CEBL, even though this first one will be hard to top.