ABOUT THE BANDITS

The Vancouver Bandits play at Langley Events Centre (LEC). The club previously played at Abbotsford Centre for three seasons from 2019-2021 before announcing its relocation on September 23, 2021. The 322,312 square foot Langley Events Centre consists of an arena bowl, triple gymnasium and double gymnasium, fieldhouse, banquet hall, meeting rooms, and gymnastics training facility. Langley Events Centre is located within Willoughby Community Park which also includes many athletic amenities.

The Bandits are one of 10 teams that compete in the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL). The league began with six inaugural teams in four provinces and has since expanded to 10 teams in six provinces, making it the largest pro sports league in Canada with further expansion planned. The CEBL has the highest percentage of Canadian players of any pro league in the country with 71 per cent of its current team rosters being Canadian. Players bring experience from the NBA, NBA G League, top international leagues, the Canadian National team program, and top NCAA programs as well as U SPORTS. 

The only First Division Professional League Partner of Canada Basketball, the CEBL season runs May through August and typically features a 20-game regular reason that is followed by a Championship Weekend playoff format that sees a host city welcome playoff finalists for a multi-day celebration of culture and sports that features playoff basketball, award shows, community and corporate functions and various activations featuring local artists and vendors.

Langley Events Centre is a state-of-the-art venue equipped for hosting world-class professional and amateur sporting events, as well as entertainment events; including conventions, festivals, galas and more.

The Bandits’ move to Langley allowed the club to be more accessible to fans from Metro Vancouver while still remaining close to its founding season ticket members and fans from Abbotsford and the surrounding eastern Fraser Valley. In addition to serving as the home of professional basketball in B.C., LEC showcases the province’s best players annually when it welcomes emerging amateur boys and girls who compete at the B.C. High School Basketball Championships.

Proximity to its target market, as well as the opportunity to capitalize on the resources of the venue paved the way for the Bandits to move to LEC. The venue is also home to the Western Hockey League’s (WHL) Vancouver Giants, the incoming Vancouver CPL club, the Langley Thunder, Trinity Western University’s U SPORTS competing teams, as well as Basketball BC headquarters and a variety of user groups, clubs and high school teams that frequent the venue on a weekly basis.

Showpass is our ticketing provider for season, group and single game tickets, as well as a variety of flex and family pack options; including special offers for theme games. 

Vancouver Bandits 2024 Season Tickets are available now. Click here to purchase: https://www.thebandits.ca/season-tickets

The Fraser Valley Bandits was a founding member of the CEBL and was introduced as the league’s sixth franchise on July 16, 2018. The logo was an orange fox wearing a bandit mask and the team’s primary colours were orange, navy and cream white. Since its inaugural season in which the club ranked among the league’s best in attendance, the Bandits have had continued success at the box office and are a perennial playoff contender. BC’s professional basketball team finished first in the CEBL in average attendance after recording four straight sell-outs during the 2021 season. Its per game attendance rose in 2022; including hosting the highest attended single game in league history on June 18 when the Bandits hosted the inaugural BC Basketball Festival and defeated the Scarborough Shooting Stars 92-89 in front of 4,404 fans.

The Bandits are the founding brand under the umbrella of Bandits Sports & Entertainment (BSE), which is an ownership group jointly led by Kevin Dhaliwal, Founder and President of Essence Properties, and Bryan Slusarchuk, Co-Founder of K92 Mining Inc. and Principal of SluzCap.

Through their shared passion for sport, the two co-owners launched the partnership with a goal of supporting the community through year-round collaborations with partners in the entertainment and sports sectors.

BSE is fueled by Dhaliwal and Slusarchuk’s involvement in local sports as former high school athletes and today as community partners of various events, tournaments and more.

As part of their acquisition of the Bandits, Dhaliwal and Slusarchuk purchased territorial exclusivity for the rights to own and operate a CEBL franchise in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley Regional District. Metro Vancouver consists of 21 municipalities and the Fraser Valley is home to six. After moving to Langley Events Centre, the Bandits saw an increased percentage of its fans hail from Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey and Vancouver.

This in conjunction with the territorial acquisition informed the club’s decision to incorporate “Vancouver” in its name as a means of better representing the broader scope of cities across the two regions that Bandits fans come from.