NBL will go to one division with unbalanced schedule
As the National Basketball League of Canada shuffles the deck after the exit of the Niagara River Lions, the long-term effect may provide fans with more variety.
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As the National Basketball League of Canada shuffles the deck after the exit of the Niagara River Lions, the long-term effect may provide fans with more variety.
As people are wont to say, variety is the spice of life that gives it all its flavour.
With the loss of the River Lions and the addition of the Sudbury Five, the NBL remains at 10 teams. The St. John’s Edge were told they would have to play in the Central Division for only one year and with the addition of Sudbury, would be moved to the more appropriate Atlantic Division, leaving the Atlantic with six teams and Central with five.
But with Niagara making the big adios, the NBL has opted to change its format.
It will retain a 40-game schedule, but all teams will be placed into one division. It’s likely the teams in Ontario and the Atlantic teams will meet more than the two times that have been the standard the previous few years.
It’s a good decision. The idea of one division having six teams and the other four — having to watch Kitchener Titans, Windsor Express and The Five play each other as many as nine times — is stupefying.
The details have yet to be worked out, but the schedule will be unbalanced, meaning Ontario teams will play Atlantic teams as much as four games more often. There may also be an unbalanced number of games between Ontario opponents.
The teams that finish in the top eight spots in the league will make the playoffs.
Until the league is able to balance its divisions, this is the best move it can make. Even when the Central and Atlantic divisions had five teams each, it was downright boring seeing the same teams play each other seven or eight times. It wasn’t fun for the players and did little to motivate fans to go out and buy yet another ticket to see Kitchener or whoever came through the Budweiser Gardens’ doors.
“We wanted a way so we didn’t have to see the same teams over and over again,” said deputy commissioner Audley Stephenson. “It slightly increases road trips.
“If Cape Breton came to Ontario, they would traditionally play their two games and then go. Now they might play three or four games and go. The same thing for Ontario teams that went out east. That’s subject to building availability and if we can squeeze in a game for a back-to-back. We aren’t going to try and kill teams with the schedule to get extra games in.”
The Edge provided a template for this type of schedule. Playing in the Central Division last year, the Edge might have been on the road for a week or 10 days and get to play four games. Then they’d be home for the same time frame. There was a time last season when they spent more than two weeks on the road, but that was the exception.
While there is an owner ready to put an NBL franchise in the Niagara region, it might not happen this year. What will happen in the next little while is the opening of legal proceedings by the NBL against the owner of the River Lions, Richard Petko. It may wind up including the Meridian Centre for its refusal to negotiate with the NBL for a lease while granting one to the River Lions to play in the CEBL.
The CEBL is supposed to begin play in late May while the NBL season finishes around the same time.
Lawyers for the NBL will look at what they believe are actions abrogating the non-compete clause in their franchise agreement as well as other actions the NBL believes contravened the agreement while the River Lions were still active members of the NBL.
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