The Edmonton Stingers of the Canadian Elite Basketball League announced Wednesday that they will host their inaugural Indigenous Celebration Night presented by Sentinel Storage on June 17th vs the Montreal Alliance. The project comes as a joint effort between the Stingers, Indigenous Edmonton Entertainment Group (IEEG) and Windspeaker Media.
The night will feature a halftime rendition of Bear Grease, the international Indigenous hit musical led by MC RedCloud and Crystle Lightning. Indigenous gameday staff including DJ and host, will lead the in-game fan experience, and pre game celebrations will take place. As part of the Celebration, the Stingers will be inviting numerous local Indigenous youth basketball teams to attend the game for free through their Basketball for All program.
The game will also be the first professional basketball game ever broadcast in both English and Cree. It will be broadcast live on 89.3 the Raven, with broadcasters Wayne Jackson & Darcy Houle. For those who don’t live in Edmonton, they can tune in at ravenradio.ca or download the Windspeaker Media App on ios/android to listen to all Windspeaker Media radio stations in Alberta, which includes CFWE Northern Alberta and CJWE Southern Alberta.
“This will be an exciting and historic broadcast as it will allow the “nêhiyawêwin” (Cree) language to be broadcast to basketball fans,” said Bert Crowfoot, General Manager of Windspeaker Media. “This is a way of regaining our culture, regaining our language. We look forward to working alongside the Stingers on this historic broadcast.”
“An Indigenous-led celebration is something we have wanted to host for a long time,” said Reed Clarke, President & CEO of the Stingers. “Having amazing partners like the IEEG and Windspeaker Media involved is crucial to ensure we can properly honour and respect the diverse crowd that we want to celebrate.”
Tickets to the game online and by contacting the Stingers front office. upper bowl tickets start at just $20 with limited lower bowl, courtside, and premium suites remaining. The Stingers front office is available at tickets@thestingers.ca or by calling 1-87STINGERS.
Windspeaker Media listeners will also have opportunities to win tickets to the June 17th matchup. Those details will be announced soon.
Stingers president Reed Clark and Indigenous Edmonton Entertainment Group’s Georgina Lightning & Cloud joined the Windspeaker Radio Network to talk about the June 17th event.
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