One thousand fans were welcomed at TD Place Arena on Saturday night as the Ottawa BlackJacks beat the Edmonton Stingers 79-74 in the city’s first live-attendee sporting event since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ottawa handed Edmonton, the reigning Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) champions, their first loss of the season as a welcome home gift for fans long deprived of live sports.
Though 1,000 fans is far fewer than the full 9,500-seat capacity of TD Place Arena, the players could feel the electricity.
“The crowd makes a huge difference, they give us that energy and they lift us up,” BlackJacks guard Junior Cadougan said. “They’re our sixth man.”
The timing couldn’t have been better for the BlackJacks as they faced off against their most formidable opponent of the season. With a spotless 7-0 record in 2021, the Stingers were stopped in their tracks by a superb first quarter from Ottawa.
Edmonton mounted a second-quarter effort that pushed the BlackJacks on their heels, keeping the game tight and the audience on the edge of their seats. When the BlackJacks needed to stop the slide, energy from the audience may have been a difference-maker, head coach Charles Dubé-Brais said.
“I can’t say enough about the noise they were making in the second half,” he said.
Dubé-Brais credits the victory to a solid defensive performance, bolstered by strong support from fans.
“We defended a lot better tonight and we created misses and took away their comfort,” he said.
Dubé-Brais also noted the BlackJacks had one of their worst offensive outputs of the season. The 79 points Ottawa scored was only two more points than their lowest-scoring game, a 92-77 loss on July 3. Against Edmonton—which has one of the best offences in the league, according to Dubé-Brais—the defence was the true deciding factor.
The BlackJacks held the Stingers, who have scored more than 100 points twice this year, to a meagre 36 per cent shooting from the field and nine-for-32 from behind the arc. Edmonton’s 74 points was their worst offensive performance of the season.
Nick Ward led the BlackJacks in defensive blocks while contributing a team-high 26 points. Ward said the fans were “a big momentum boost” when the team needed it most.
Edmonton Stingers star Xavier Moon said he was “happy that Ontario finally opened up.” The Stingers have hosted fans at their home games since July 2.
“The fans are what make the game,” Moon said.
Though excited to have fans back, Dubé-Brais had other significant takeaways from the BlackJacks upset victory.
“One thing we’ve built is a little more resiliency to fight through those pushes that the other team is making,” Dubé-Brais said.
After two games on the road this week, the BlackJacks will hope to defend their home court again on July 26 against the struggling Saskatchewan Rattlers, who are 0-8.
“It was great to have that support [at home],” Dubé-Brais said. “Hopefully we can build off that and win our next home games.”
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
