The Winnipeg Sea Bears have won the 2026 Canadian Elite Basketball League championship. On Saturday at the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the Sea Bears defeated the Brampton Honey Badgers 98-84. This is the first CEBL title in the history of the Sea Bears.
In the championship final, captain and guard Xavier Moon led the team in scoring with 29 points. Four more Sea Bears reached double digits in scoring. Canadian forward Simon Hildebrandt of Winnipeg, Manitoba had 24 points, guard Jelani Watson-Gayle had 17 points off the bench, while guards Trey McGowens and Isiah Osborne had 10 points each. Like Hildebrandt, Osborne is a Canadian as he is from Windsor, Ontario. Forward D.J. Burns led the Sea Bears with eight rebounds and co-led the team with Moon in assists with six. McGowens had a Sea Bears high three steals.
Winnipeg dominated the middle two quarters in the final. They outscored Brampton 53-36. The CEBL Final was originally to be a best of three final, however the basketball court in Brampton was considered unsafe to play because of condensation. The first game of the series was cancelled 106 seconds into the game on Wednesday.
The Sea Bears qualified for the finals by beating the Saskatoon Mamba 99-88 in the Western Conference semifinals and the Vancouver Bandits 107-96 in the Western Conference Finals. The Sea Bears had the second best Western Conference regular season record at 14 wins and 10 losses.
