FRASER VALLEY BANDITS ANNOUNCE BROADCAST TEAM FOR 2021 CEBL SEASON
Bandits Staff • June 8, 2021
Fai, Brempong and Chand named on-air talent
ABBOTSFORD, B.C., June 8, 2021 – The Fraser Valley Bandits
announced the trio of Rob Fai, Ransford Brempong and Shantelle Chand as its on-air talent for the upcoming Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) season.
Together the trio bring extensive knowledge to the Bandits’ broadcast thanks to decades of combined experience for radio and television in various sporting disciplines, as well as time spent on the court and sidelines. Sports media veterans Fai and Chand will serve as play-by-play announcer and sideline reporter, respectively, while Brempong becomes the club’s broadcast analyst.
An award-winning broadcast veteran, Fai brings more than 20 seasons of play-by-play experience. Fai spent 14 seasons as a play-by-play announcer for the Vancouver Canadians, a minor-league affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. In his time with the club, Fai broadcast more than 1,000 games for radio and television. For his service to the team and to the game of baseball, Fai received the Baseball BC Meritorious Award in 2014 and was inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame in 2015.
Outside of the broadcast booth, Fai has worked with the Vancouver Canadians Baseball Foundation to provide more than 3,500 children with funding to play baseball. Fai currently hosts the daily podcast SportsBar Radio and the Vancouver Canucks post-game show The Nation.
Joining Fai is Brempong, who has traded his jersey for a microphone as the Bandits’ analyst. Brempong retired from professional play after concluding his career in August 2019 following Fraser Valley’s inaugural season. Brempong has a distinguished history with Canada’s national team. He played more than eight years as part of the senior men’s program. After graduating from Western Carolina University, Brempong played professionally in Germany and Holland for six years. In that time, he was named the Dutch Basketball League’s defensive player of the year following the 2006-07 season.
A resident of Deep Cove, B.C., Brempong is well-known in the local basketball community. When not instilling his knowledge of the game with local hoopers at WestCoast Training or 3PointBasketball, he is also a spoken word poet, performing at various local events and arts festivals.
Chand joins the Bandits as a sideline reporter. Chand began her broadcasting career as a traffic anchor on AM730. In her five years with the station, she also covered the BC Lions, Vancouver Whitecaps and NCAA March Madness Tournament for sister station 980 CKNW.
Chand made her national television debut on NBA TV Canada’s The Hangout during the 2014 NBA Finals. In 2017, she worked as a field reporter for the Vancouver Canadians, a minor league affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. From there, Chand joined TSN 1040 as a host and producer and flourished as a sports media personality at the station. As host and creator of The Home Stretch, Chand became the first-ever woman to host her own sports radio talk show on the platform. She has also worked as a sideline reporter for the National Lacrosse League’s Vancouver Warriors since 2018.
The Bandits open the 2021 season at Abbotsford Centre when the club welcomes the Saskatchewan Rattlers for Fraser Valley’s home opener on Saturday, June 26. All regular season games will be live streamed on the free CBC Gem streaming service, cbcsports.ca, the CBC Sports app for iOS and Android devices and on a new OTT streaming platform that the CEBL will unveil this spring.
A league created by Canadians for Canadians, the CEBL has the highest percentage of Canadian players of any professional league in the country, with 80 percent of its 2020 rosters being Canadians. Players come from the NBA G League, top international leagues, the Canadian national team program, and top NCAA and U SPORTS programs. More information about the Bandits is available at thebandits.ca. A full regular season schedule can be found at thebandits.ca/schedule.
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For media inquiries, please contact:
Andrew Savory, Director of Operations, (604) 217-6213, asavory@thebandits.ca
About the Fraser Valley Bandits:
The Fraser Valley Bandits are British Columbia’s professional basketball team. As the westernmost club in the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL), the club is proud to call Abbotsford Centre home. The Bandits offer a riveting entertainment experience that combines a fast-paced game day atmosphere with a presentation of some of Canada’s top professional athletes within a world-class venue. PerfectLens, a Vancouver-based contact lens supplier, is the official presenting partner of the Bandits’ 2021 season. Head to thebandits.ca
for more information.
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