With new ownership comes a new brand for the Fraser Valley Bandits, the local CEBL franchise that plays out of the Langley Events Centre (LEC), which will now be known as the Vancouver Bandits after their new ownership change on September 13.
Kevin Dhaliwal, founder and president of Essence Properties, and Bryan Slusarchuk, co-founder of K92 Mining Inc, and principal of SluzCap, jointly lead the Bandits Sports & Entertainment ownership group the pro-basketball team now operates under. While the new name no longer acknowledges the team’s home in the Valley, the brand and ownership change couldn’t be better.
The newly branded Vancouver Bandits are the first of the original six CEBL teams to be owned independently and the second independent franchise behind the Scarborough Shooting Stars, who have been independently owned since their arrival in the CEBL in 2022. Dhaliwal and Slusarchuk were sponsors of the Bandits and saw the growth potential in the team before becoming owners, and they have been fans of the Bandits and the team’s role in the community since the team arrived in 2016.
“I got involved with the Bandits originally as a season ticket holder, then I got more involved as a sponsor,” Slusarchuk told TSN reporters the day the story broke.Â
Slusarchuk explained that it was the Bandits’ outreach across their youth community that drew his attention to buying the franchise. The Bandits organization works with many youth basketball associations across the Fraser Valley and has started its own loyal fanbase with the Valley’s youth. The new ownership assures and plans that their involvement in the community won’t be going away, as it was that fanbase and community outreach that drew them to buy the team in the first place. Instead, the new owners want to further grow a sustainable foothold for Canadian basketball in the Lower Mainland.
The Vancouver name recognition will help grow the team and the local area. Frankly, not many outside of B.C., and even then some within the province, know where and what the Fraser Valley signifies. People in our own province sometimes forget there are towns outside of Vancouver.
“A lot of people still don’t know there’s a team playing just outside of the big city,” Dhaliwal said in an interview with CBC. “I was looking at some of the comments on the league’s Instagram and they asked, ‘Which city should get a team next?’ And a lot of comments were saying Vancouver. And I was like ‘We have a team!'” he said. The Vancouver name is a bigger draw for outside investors’ attention to the Fraser Valley, and more talent for the Bandits’ roster. The change and potential growth couldn’t have been better timed with the LEC and the Bandit’s home crowd being the hosts of the CEBL’s 2023 championship weekend next August.
While there is a melancholic twinge to seeing the name “Fraser Valley” go, we should be proud of what the rebranding symbolizes. They’re growing, but they’re still our own team. We got investors from our province to buy a franchise in the Valley from a corporation to keep that franchise in the Valley, and grow the Valley from money inside our community. We built something for ourselves with just our passion (and hard-earned money), and that’s something we should be happy about.
Teryn Midzain is an English Major with ambitious goals to write movies and a full-time nerd, whose personality and eccentrics run on high-octane like the cars he loves. More importantly, Teryn loves sports [Formula One], and doesn’t care who knows. When not creating and running deadly schemes in his D&D sessions, Teryn tries to reach the core of what makes the romantic and dramatic World of Sports, the characters and people that make the events so spectacular.
