League CBA Team colors Red, Black and Gold Ownership Michael Tuckman Date founded 2006 Championships 0 | Location Vancouver, Canada Head coach TBA Arena PNE Agrodome Color Red, Black and Gold | |
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History Vancouver Dragons
2006-present | ||
The Vancouver Dragons were a professional basketball team in the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), and one of seven (7) minor league sports franchises owned by Seattle attorney and businessman Michael Tuckman, CEO of West Coast Sports, LLC.
Tuckman negotiated a three-year lease with the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver, British Columbia to play 24 home games each year in the 4,500-seat Agrodome in 2006. That same year, Vancouver was awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics and the Dragon's lease was deferred until the conclusion of the games due to the high demand for indoor sports facilities in the run-up to the Olympics.
In 2001, Tuckman proposed a $150 million sports arena and performing arts center project to the city council of Bellevue, Washington, an affluent Seattle suburb, to be built on three acres of city-owned land downtown. Tuckman needed sports tenants to sign long-term leases in order to obtain financing for his project, so he paid $125,000 in cash in 2003 to purchase a CBA expansion franchise for Bellevue to become an anchor tenant. The league gave Tuckman permission to play at nearby Bellevue Community College for three years while Bellevue Civic Center Arena was being built at NE 8th and 112th NE across the street from the Meydenbauer Convention Center. When it was determined that BCC would not be a suitable venue for pro basketball, Tuckman moved the team to Vancouver and changed the name to the Dragons.
In a 2006 interview with the Vancouver Sun newspaper, Tuckman cited one of the hurdles to playing in Vancouver being that most international players had single-entrance visas, which meant that if they left the United States to play a game in Canada, they could not return to the U.S.
The Dragons were initially slated to play in the ABA along with Tuckman's other teams. This would be the fourth time that Vancouver had a professional basketball team; Vancouver's other professional teams were the World Basketball League's Vancouver Nighthawks, the second being the NBA's Vancouver Grizzlies and the International Basketball League's Vancouver Titans.
The Vancouver Dragons deferred participation in the 2007-08 season citing arena issues. Most recently, the Dragons were waiting until the conclusion of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver to launch the team for the 2010-11 season.