In preparation for their 2025-26 season, the NBA’s Toronto Raptors will hold training camp at the University of Calgary this fall.
This will be the first time the team has hosted a training camp in Calgary, having previously played two pre-season games, in 1996 and 2016, in the city.
“It’s been nearly a decade since we were last in Calgary – so we’re excited to be spending the better part of a week in the Stampede City,” Raptors General Manager Bobby Webster said in a UCalgary issued press release.
The team will hold media day on Monday, Sept. 29 in Toronto before travelling to Calgary. The team will practice Tuesday, Sept. 30 through Thursday, Oct. 2 at the Jack Simpson Gym on campus.
Although all practice sessions are closed to the public, the Raptors will host their annual Open Practice on Friday, Oct. 3 at the Jack Simpson Gym, according to the press release, with further details related to the Open Practice will be announced at a later date.
In hosting the camp, University of Calgary Director of Athletics Ben Matchett, hopes to involve as many UCalgary students as possible.
“We’ll certainly have to do a bunch of work around staffing the open practice and things like that, so we’re going to find as many opportunities as we can,” he said.
“We’ll work to provide as many of those types of opportunities as possible within the realities of the work that the Raptors are here to do.”
After training camp, the team will then travel west for their first preseason game on Oct. 6 in Vancouver, against the Denver Nuggets and Canadian star Jamal Murray.
Since their creation in 1996, the Raptors have done an excellent job at representing Canada as a nation, Matchett said. The team contacted the school directly for the possibility of hosting training camp.
“They were in Montreal last year, they were on the west coast a couple of years ago, so they reached out to us, saying that they were interested in coming to Calgary,” he said.
“They came into the tour of the sites and saw the facilities and hotels and everything like that, and we were able to make it happen.”
With the recent success of the Calgary Surge and UCalgary set to host the U SPORTS Men’s Basketball Final 8 tournament in March 2026, Matchett said that everything is coming together at once for Calgary basketball.
“It’s a testament to the strength of the basketball community in Calgary that it was something that (the Raptors) saw and liked and wanted to be a part of,” he said.
“It will be a really unique opportunity for minor basketball kids and any fans of the NBA as a pretty rare chance to see NBA players on the floor in Calgary. We’re really excited about that at the open practice in October.”
The Jack Simpson Gym can hold between 3000 to 3800 fans. According to Matchett, the open practice will be a popular event, and the gym will be packed to the rafters.
“We’ll get as many people as possible into that gym and do our best to make sure that there’s equitable access, but we do expect tickets to go quickly when they do go on sale,” he said.
Open practice tickets are expected to go on sale in late August or early September.
