Cannons legend fired up by NBL return to Canberra

• NBL announced The Blitz would be held at the AIS Arena in Canberra
• Bruton coached the last NBL team in the nation's capital, the Canberra Cannons, until they folded in 2003
• The Blitz trophy is named the Loggins-Bruton Cup after Leroy Loggins and Cal Bruton

The Black Pearl is fired up because the NBL is back in the nation's capital for the first time in a generation.

NBL Hall of Famer Cal Bruton, who played for the Canberra Cannons between 1999 and the year they folded 2003, was front and centre at the official announcement the NBL's pre-season Blitz would be held at the AIS in the ACT between August 27 and 31, 2025.

"When I knew the Blitz was coming to Canberra, it's a proud moment for me as someone who's had a lot to do with basketball in this city," Bruton, 70, said.

"All the NBL teams are coming here and Canberra is going to be at the centre of it all and I just can't wait to see everyone in Canberra get behind it and show how much the sport has grown here and how much support it does have."

All 10 NBL teams will compete for the Loggins-Bruton Cup — named in honour of he and fellow NBL legend and champion Leroy Loggins.

"I have some fond memories of those days with the Cannons but also remember how tough it was at the end," the 1982 NBL Coach of the Year said.

While Canberra doesn't have the glitz and glamour of other states as far as being known as basketball heartland because ACT doesn't have national championships to their name or an NBL team — the man known for having arguably the most swagger in Aussie basketball history said ACT remained a stronghold for the sport.

"We just had a homegrown kid in Alex Toohey drafted into the NBA, and obviously on top of that, we had Patty Mills who started it all," Bruton said.

"But we have the Centre of Excellence here, all the best prospects, and even around the world with the NBA Global Academy come here, to Canberra, nowhere else.

"We're also seeing players like my grandson, Rio, play for the CoE at the NBL1 level, so people get to see the top young players in their own backyard.

"Our junior numbers are growing out of this world, I see it every day when I work with juniors.

"The hype around basketball in Canberra and the ACT is only going to get bigger after Toohey made the NBA. We see that all the time.

"Then on the women's side we see people being able to touch the elite level up close and personal with the (Canberra) Capitals. Now the icing on the cake, for a man like me, would just be to see an NBL team come back here. If that happens, basketball will just explode here in Canberra."

Through his work over the past two decades at the grassroots level, the Bruton Basketball Foundation and now working with Game Above Sports who are part-owners of the Brisbane Bullets, Bruton said there were no words to express how much an NBL team returning to Canberra would mean to him.

"It would just mean the world," he said.

"I would go as far to say no one has spent as many hours at the basketball courts at local clubs, schools and all of that around Canberra and the ACT as me over the years.

"I've seen how much it has grown, I see how much people love it, we've seen so many good things happen like someone such as Alex Toohey going through the ranks to the NBA and other things like developing some of the Sudanese community here into quality basketball players.

"It's been my life's work growing the game here.

"The Blitz coming is a huge step in the right direction towards hopefully a team coming back and then this growing basketball city has everything."