The CEBL will open its second-ever season Saturday. The season is being distilled into a two-week tournament, but while optimism is high this will all work, because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there are no guarantees. (By michaelgrange)
Throughout the winter and with spring approaching, there was considerable excitement building within the offices of the Canadian Elite Basketball League.
Mike Morreale, the former CFL star turned CEBL commissioner, rhymes off the off-season milestones like someone looking back on a perfect holiday before the credit cards bills came due. After a bit of a wait-and-see approach by some of Canada’s more established international pros in 2019, enthusiasm for the opportunity to play and get paid near home for a 20-game summer season was growing among players. The league’s overall talent level was poised to take a leap, with rosters filling out with players with G League experience and seasons in some of Europe’s top leagues on their resumés.
Those efforts to keep moving when everything stopped are hopefully going to pay off over the next two weeks as the CEBL is poised to become the first professional league in Canada to return to competition when they tip off their Summer Series with a double-header on Saturday broadcast live on CBC from the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines, Ont.Instead of a 20-game schedule played out from mid-May to late August with a championship weekend initially planned for Edmonton on Aug.
Morreale said the league’s import players – three are allowed per team and all American – followed the 14-day quarantine guidelines and that all the players in training camp were tested for COVID-19 with negative results, although not without hiccups. A handful of tests were “inconclusive,” which required a second round of testing. There’s daily screening for symptoms and so far no red flags.
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