Sea Bears finish on top

Beauty. Bliss. Ecstasy.

That is how Aug. 15, 2026 will be remembered in Winnipeg.

What was once a pipe dream in the city’s hoops community became an epic reality on Saturday, when Simon Hildebrandt, who grew up playing on the courts of this very town, made good on a three-pointer from the wing to crown the Winnipeg Sea Bears Canadian Elite Basketball League champions.

A storybook ending to a 98-84 victory over the Brampton Honey Badgers sent a CEBL attendance record of 12,519 fans into pandemonium at Canada Life Centre and capped a Finals run for the ages — one that was fraught with injury, impromptu player exits and unprecedented circumstances.

“Very special feeling; very special day,“ Hildebrandt said.

“It was super random. I had no thoughts, no emotions; it all kind of went blank, and we started celebrating.”

It was in this very arena where the Sea Bears were knocked out of the playoffs last year and had to watch confetti fall on the Niagara River Lions. Those hardships were all but forgotten for at least one moment.

It was Winnipeg’s turn.

“You guys are better with words than I am, but it feels amazing,” said first-year head coach Mike Raimbault.

“Definitely proud of the entire organization. There’s a lot of other people that go into making this even possible for us to do. I mean, last night, the entire front office is together putting towels on chairs, so it really permeates from the top down with (chair) David Asper, all the way through to every person within the organization, who should feel a great sense of accomplishment for what was done here tonight.”

This wasn’t an ordinary achievement, and it wasn’t any ordinary run.

It marked a fitting ending to a return from a legend.

“It’s crazy to be back in this environment again,” said Xavier Moon, who earned his third CEBL championship and Finals Most Valuable Player award. “Obviously, familiar territory for me winning, but to do it in a city that’s never won a playoff game, I think it means a lot more.”

It meant hometown players like Hildebrandt, Mason Kraus, Kyler Filewich, and U Sports signings Ramogi Nyagudi and Kato Jaro reached the top of Canada’s basketball mountain in their own backyard.

“I just left the floor, and prior to leaving the floor, I was talking to Chad Posthumus’s folks, and his dad got to go up the ladder and cut down a piece of the net,” said Raimbault. “I think if Chad was watching the game and could handpick who’s going to hit the game-winning basket, I think it would be Simon.”

And it completed a story for a basketball community that had experienced its fair share of hardships in the years that preceded, like three straight seasons of falling short in the playoffs, or the loss of a local icon in Posthumus.

“I think he’d just give me a patented Chad big bear hug,” Hildebrandt said of his good friend, who hit the first game-winning shot in franchise history. “I think that’d be the one thing he’d do, be at a loss for words. Just a lot of memories coming back for him today. Obviously, I wish more than anything that he was he was here with us. I know he’s looking down on us with a big smile and just cheering. That’s Chad.”

There was a time in recent days when the Sea Bears couldn’t catch a break.

Travel issues. Injured stars. Hitting the road for the first game of this series, only for it to be cancelled.

None of that matters now, but what does is the persistence and grit that ensued — two words that have been used repeatedly to describe a club that has embraced a team-oriented brand of basketball, especially in the post-season.

It was no different on this night.

Moon’s 29 points were a game-high, while Hildebrandt supplied an equally crucial 24 points, along with six rebounds and three blocks.

All of Jelani Watson-Gayle’s 17 points came in the first half, which tied a record for the most points in the opening half of a Finals. He also tied a Finals record with five three-pointers in the contest.

Trey McGowens and Isiah Osborne both chipped in with 10 points. Then there was the spark plug, DJ Burns, who dislocated his finger earlier in the playoffs and still produced eight points, eight rebounds and six assists while having a massive impact away from the box score.

“The entire group had a massive belief that we could be successful, and it was so fun to see some people step into bigger roles and blossom,” said Raimbault.

“The entire group believed that we could do it, but we also had a large sense that to do it, we needed everybody to be at their best, and to do that, we had to support one another.”

Raimbault said Teddy Allen sent him a text on Friday, wishing him good luck. Allen also FaceTimed with a teammate after the game.

It’s an ending that many outside the building never pegged the Sea Bears to have. There were plenty of questions about how a first-year pro head coach and his staff of first-year pro coaches would translate to this level, and it’s safe to say that landing a three-time MVP in Moon, reuniting with another former MVP in Allen, winning a franchise-record 14 games and guiding perhaps the most well-rounded iteration of the Sea Bears in franchise history to its first playoff victory and Finals appearance proved many wrong.

“I asked him to write down words, individual words, that describe what his organization would be, and I thought I might get three to five words out of him, and he wrote down two: Tough. Connected,” Asper recalled of the conversation that preceded Raimbault’s hiring.

“He didn’t want to give me any more words, and I thought that was pretty impressive. For what could be a very complex thing, he reduced it and simplified it and said, ‘This is what he wanted to be,’ and I said, ‘OK.’”

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