Edmonton hosts Canadian club wheelchair basketball finals this weekend

A Canadian Wheelchair Basketball League game in Edmonton on Friday, April 17, 2026. (Evan Klippenstein/CTV News Edmonton)

Edmonton’s Saville Community Sports Centre is hosting Canada’s largest domestic wheelchair basketball tournament this weekend.

The Canadian Wheelchair Basketball League Finals, which started Friday at 8:30 a.m. and runs through Sunday, features four divisions and 22 teams.

The tournament will end on Sunday with three gold-medal games. Off the court, the national wheelchair basketball awards and hall of fame banquet is slated for Saturday at the Holiday Inn Edmonton South.

“Our vision for the CWBL Finals is to create stage-appropriate, meaningful competition opportunities for all Canadians,” Sean Liebich, the director of development for Wheelchair Basketball Canada, said Friday in a media release. “We have implemented some intentional, targeted strategies this year to expand the event, include more people and celebrate this great community.”

The weekend event will also recognize the 50th anniversary of the Alberta Northern Lights wheelchair basketball program. The current Northern Lights squad will play the Centre d’intégration à la vie active (CIVA) on Friday night in the Hall of Fame game, a rematch of last year’s Division 1 gold-medal final won by CIVA.

This year’s finals adds Division 3 and a ‘Minis’ division.

Division 3 competition uses an open-points format designed to expand access to national-level play. It features four teams representing Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario, and matches individual athletes from non-competing clubs with Division 3 teams.

The Minis division was created to allow young athletes to compete at the national level.

Branden Troutman, who plays for the Alberta Northern Lights, calls wheelchair basketball “a really disciplined sport.”

“I think that’s what makes people chase it so much is you’ve got to know your stuff to do really well,” said Troutman.