Energy opts not to play basketball this season
Team blames ‘behind-the-scenes struggles’ in Facebook posting
The Edmonton Energy is taking a breather.
The local semi-professional basketball team will not play in the International Basketball League this year. The team announced the news on its Facebook page on Friday, saying it was taking a timeout for the 2013 season.
“There has been no talk about what will happen in seasons to come, so that is still unknown right now,” the statement said. “As much as we all loved being part of the City of Champions, the behind-the-scenes struggles were really difficult for our staff and ownership group.
“This is a tough thing for all of us to let go of and I know many of us personally hope to be back up and running as soon as possible. Edmonton is a great city and we were incredibly proud to represent it.
“We love, appreciate and thank all of our fans and supporters for everything over the past few years.”
Edmonton joined the IBL in 2008 as the Edmonton Chill. That team was dissolved at the end of that season when its then-owner, Troy Barns, disappeared from Edmonton.
At the time, the IBL’s commissioner cited a growing amount of unpaid debts as the main reason for his decision to dissolve the team.
A multi-person ownership group, led by now-Edmonton-Gold Bar MLA David Dorward, formed the Energy in 2009. While successful on the court, the Energy struggled to build a fan base. In a financial bind in 2010, the team opted to not send the Energy to the IBL playoffs.
While the Energy’s ownership group committed to the team the next two years and sent them to the playoffs, the league began to show its difficulties with Edmonton. The IBL consists of teams largely from the Washington State and Oregon areas. Over the last two years, teams travelled to Edmonton, but would only send a small amount of players from their roster, whether full-time jobs prevented players’ travel or other issues crossing the border came up. In some instances there were only four, five or six players making the trip for a weekend’s worth of games. The Energy was regularly forced to fill out the visiting rosters with local former college players. The Energy would often get an inflated win and was unprepared for the teams it would face on the road in the playoffs.
Paul Sir, the executive director at Basketball Alberta, left the team as its coach and general manager after it didn’t make the 2010 playoff trip, but had been working with the Energy through this winter to try to make a go of the 2013 season.
With the Energy’s hiatus and the prolonged silence from the provincial government on its willingness to fund the proposed relocation of Canada Basketball to Edmonton’s Saville Community Sports Centre, there are still hopes to make Edmonton a basketball presence.
Efforts are being made to keep the Energy in the public eye through this summer with some exhibition games throughout Alberta. On the national front, Basketball Alberta may seek corporate sponsorship to bring at least a portion of the Canadian program to Edmonton in the future.
While the Energy was withdrawing from its season, there are signs of basketball life further north. The Grande Prairie Daily Herald Tribune reported on Wednesday that the Grande Prairie Cowboys would join the American Basketball Association for the 2013-14 season. The Cowboys would join the Calgary Crush as Alberta’s second team in that league.
The ABA’s original incarnation thrived in the early and mid 1970s before merging with the National Basketball Association in 1976. The modern ABA (same name, no affiliation to the original) has been in operation since 1999 with varying levels of success across North America.