Excitement is building for the inaugural season of the Eastern Canadian Basketball League.

The Saint John Union will see their first tip-off at home on Friday night at TD Station as they try to dunk the Bathurst Bears.

The Moncton Motion will come to centre court at the Avenir Centre on April 6 against the same team.

The league currently has six teams scattered across Atlantic Canada. They include Truro Tide, Valley Vipers, Summerside Slam, Bathurst Bears, Charlottetown Power, and Saint John Union.

League Vice-President Dwayne Tingley says, “We’re committed to growing the sport. We’re going to expect regularly 2000 or 3000 fans at the games in Moncton and probably the same in Saint John. So we’re going to keep building the game and helping our communities grow as well,” Tingley says.

The community will play a big role in the ECBL, with lots of involvement.

“We’ve made contact with the school district, and different minor basketball associations. In Saint John, there’s going to be a Pride night and they’re going to have a mental health awareness night. We’ve reached out to the Moncton Libraries to get our players involved in reading programs. We’ve also made contact with Elsipogtog to do some events there. They will also be involved with our home opener, with traditional dance and anthems. We’re stressing our community involvement,” Tingley stresses.

He says the possibilities are endless in this sport.

Each team in the ECBL will play a 26-game schedule, which includes 13 home games and 13 away.

There is a lot of optimism surrounding ticket sales and sponsorships already and the season hasn’t even started yet, “They have been very strong. It is going to be a solid six-team league, and we’ve already got applications for franchises for cities for next year.”

The ECBL’s inaugural regular season began on March 30 in Nova Scotia.