Stingers return home with the hardware
It’s not quite the same as parading their trophy down the Avenue of Champions, but the 2020 Canadian Elite Basketball League champion Edmonton Stingers will gladly stroll Victory Lane nonetheless.
In a season turned on its head by a COVID -19 pandemic that kept fans on the outside looking in as all seven squads descended on neutral territory in St. Catharines, Ont., to play a shortened season in the form of a 16-day Summer Series tournament, the Stingers were crowned the second champions in the young league’s history on Sunday.
And members of the squad returned home Monday with the hardware in tow, refusing to let the pandemic rain on anything but an actual parade.
“I’m afraid we can’t do the big pageantry we would normally like to on a year like this, because that would be frowned upon and it’s the wrong thing to do, I’m afraid,” said Stingers president Brett Fraser. “So this year we’re just going to do it organically and have the trophy pop up at some landmarks around town and just start working toward next year. We’re defending champions now.
“After being in quarantine for 29 days, I was kind of hoping to take a couple days off, but this is even better.”
The first stop on the local tour was at the High Level Bridge, which was lit up in the team’s signature yellow and blue.
The Stingers capped a run of seven straight wins after suffering their only loss of the tournament to the Fraser Valley Bandits in their opener. Fittingly, it was the same Bandits they ended up defeating 90-73 in Sunday’s final.
“It’s been a good run,” Fraser said. “A great run.”
And with the league testing out the Elam Ending — which aims to limit fouls as the game clock is turned off in the final minutes while teams race to reach a predetermined score — it took every single member of the squad along the way to accomplish it.
From Xavier Moon’s gameclinching baskets in the playoff portion, to Jordan Baker’s three-in-a-row Player of the Game awards in the round robin, to points from the bench that proved invaluable along the way, no one missed a mention from Fraser, who was all smiles despite having to wear a mask in a photo taken upon landing at the Edmonton International Airport.