TSN shines spotlight on Niagara River Lions
Meridian Centre in downtown St. Catharines, the home court for the Niagara River Lions of the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CBEL), is among seven arenas TSN will showcase in 13 nationally televised regular-season games this year.
Niagara will be featured twice on TSN’s schedule of regular-season games. Besides their game against the Vancouver Bandits in Langley, B.C., on Canada Day, the River Lions also will be in the spotlight on Wednesday, July 17, when they host Brampton Honey Badgers.
TSN’s coverage tips off Tuesday, May 21, when the spring-summer professional league’s sixth season opens with the Calgary Surge hosting the Edmonton Stingers in a battle for Alberta basketball rights at the Scotiabank Saddledome, home of the National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames.
Four teams —Edmonton Stingers, Ottawa BlackJacks, Winnipeg Sea Bears, Calgary — will host more than one game on the TSN’s broadcast schedule. Winnipeg will be featured three times; Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Vancouver, two each.
Calgary’s second game will be played at WinSport Event Centre, the former Guelph Nighthawks’ regular home since relocating to southern Alberta following the 2022 season.
Like the River Lions, the Montreal Alliance will featured once at home on the schedule of nationally televised games. Only appearing on TSN as a visiting team — in league play at least — are the defending champion Scarborough Shooting Airs, Brampton Honey Badgers and Saskatchewan Rattlers.
The network also intends to broadcast seven playoff games, including the eastern and western conference finals and the championship game.
Championship Weekend, the league’s final four tournament for the playoff title, is taking place Aug. 9 to 11 at Verdun Auditorium in Verdun, Que., home of the Montreal Alliance.
CEBL teams once again will play a 20-game schedule, and all 107 regular-season and playoff games in 2024 will be streamed live on TSN+, the broadcaster’s standalone digital streaming service.
French-language coverage of Montreal Alliance games on RDS will be announced at a later date, the league said in a news release.
Meridian Centre, the River Lions’ home since they joined the CEBL as one of six founding franchises in 2019 and for three seasons in the fall-winter National Basketball League of Canada before that, has a listed capacity of 4,030 for basketball.
The River Lions have yet to host a Championship Weekend, which alternates between centres in eastern and western Canada, but St. Catharines was the site for a tournament played without fans during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Niagara’s regular season begins with a home-and-home versus Brampton. The River Lions visit the Honey Badgers on Friday, May 24, and host the rematch on the following Thursday.