Basketball title decided by fight and forfeit

‘It’s silly, it’s foolish, too much testosterone going around,’ NBLC owner says of skirmish

The National Basketball League of Canada is scrambling to deal with the fallout of a brawl that led to the cancellation of the championship final, and the awarding of the title to the only team that showed up to the game.

The league’s board of governors announced a slew of fines and lifetime bans Friday, after the Halifax Rainmen didn’t show for Game 7 of the championship series against the Windsor Express the night before.

The teams got in a fight during their morning shootaround, reportedly hurling chairs and throwing punches. Hours later, the Rainmen were nowhere to be seen at game time, prompting officials to declare a forfeit and hand the championship to Windsor.

“I don’t think there’s any possible way of spinning this in a positive manner,” said David Magley, the Brampton A’s general manager who was chosen by the league to investigate the incident.

“The only thing as a league we can do is face it full frontal, be honest, be open, (and) have integrity,” Magley told the Star on Friday. “We’ve got to restore faith in our paying fans.”

In a unanimous vote, the league’s directors fined the Halifax Rainmen $20,000 for “not playing the game.” The league also banned Rainmen head coach Josep Claros and assistant Pedro Monteiro from ever coaching in the NBLC again, while fining the men $10,000 and $5,000 respectively.

Eleven Rainmen players, meanwhile, were fined $5,000 each and indefinitely suspended from the league, pending the results of Magley’s investigation.

Representatives of the Halifax Rainmen did not return messages and emails from the Star on Friday.

In a statement Thursday, Rainmen owner Andre Levingston said he was saddened by the incident: “Today is truly a black eye for our league, when the game is not safe for players to compete.”

No one from the Windsor Express has been fined or banned so far, because the sanctions up to this point pertain only to how Halifax failed to show up for the game, said Vito Frijia, owner of the London Lightning team who also sits on the league’s board of governors.

Frijia explained that the Rainmen were unhappy with their pre-game practice schedule, which was slated for the afternoon, so they turned up at the arena while the Windsor Express were using the court. That’s what sparked the brawl, he said.

“There wasn’t anybody that went to the hospital, there wasn’t any blood. But it’s silly,” Frijia said. “It’s foolish and petty and too much testosterone going around.”

After the fight, the Halifax team left Windsor on a bus, and Frijia said he drove to meet them on Highway 401, but failed to convince the team to turn around and play the game.

The league was founded in 2011 and has eight teams across Ontario and the Maritimes.

Paul Riley, a lawyer and former CBC reporter who was the league commissioner until January, slammed his former colleagues as “dysfunctional,” saying that Thursday’s fight and game cancellation was a “disaster” for the league.

“It’s an example of a cartoon-like atmosphere . . . Half of the owners shouldn’t be owners in a pro league,” Riley said.

“The way it’s structured now and the people who are involved now, it will never succeed.”