On Championship Sunday of the Canadian Elite Basketball League’s 2020 Summer Series, the Edmonton Stingers met the Fraser Valley Bandits at the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines, Ontario. The perennially powerful Albertan squad was seeking retribution for its upset loss to the Saskatchewan Rattlers in the 2019 semifinals. The BC side, the lovable losers of the CEBL's inaugural season, were looking to complete a worst-to-first turnaround.
The Stingers and the Bandits played closely-contested, defensive basketball throughout the first two quarters of the final, trading the lead repeatedly. Edmonton fought their way into a 39-35 advantage going into halftime, due largely to fifteen points from their emotional leader, Xavier Moon, 2019 CEBL Player of the Year. After a cool first half, the Stingers' Jordan Baker established himself as more of a factor in the third quarter, and Edmonton expanded its lead into double digits. The Stingers weathered Fraser Valley's fourth quarter surges, transforming turnovers into more points and building up a commanding lead. Going into the Elam Ending, Edmonton led 81-63, making the Target score 90. Appropriately, it was Xavier Moon who netted the final free-throw shot to win the championship for the Stingers. Unsurprisingly, Moon was named MVP.
The CEBL trophy was processed into the arena not by the Mounties, as per last season's championship final, but rather by a medical doctor. This seemed more than fitting given the full-blown pandemic in which we live. The right to raise the trophy is much-deserved for Stinger's returnees such as Baker and Moon. This championship win may also provide some measure of solace for Stinger stalwart Travis Daniels, whose sister passed away earlier this week.
And so the Edmonton Stingers received their due plaudits, though no one deserves plaudits more than CEBL Commissioner and CEO Mike Morreale. He has done praiseworthy work keeping his basketball brand in operation in the midst of a public health crisis, ensuring that a passable product was put on the court even in the face of COVID-19. A man of indomitable spirit, he is working to continue the growth of the league, having teased the possibility of a Montreal-area expansion franchise for next season. All told, Morreale's approach vis-a-vis the CEBL should be the template for how to start a fledgling sports league and to keep it running in a society where major league sports brands are increasingly hegemonic and epidemiological concerns in the public sphere are increasingly volatile. Viva la CEBL!
