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The start of the season got pushed back and the lineup of participating teams got changed, but the Canadian Basketball League will tip off in early February and it will include an Ottawa-based club, Butch Carter says.

Carter, the former NBA player and Toronto Raptors coach who is the driving force behind the new CBL, reaffirmed Thursday that the Ottawa club would play out of the Ravens’ Nest at Carleton University, with as many as 10 home games in its initial season.

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Other teams will be based in Scarborough, Hamilton and Durham, which has taken the place of a planned Waterloo club that was put off recently.

“The only way to get the Canadian Basketball League started is go all-out,” Carter said in a telephone interview. “You have to appreciate all the people that come to help you along the way and, the ones that won’t, you have to learn to stay away from them.”

Carter had previously talked about starting CBL play in mid-December, but venue-availability issues dashed that plan. He preferred not to start the league with three teams, so the long-time Toronto resident — even though he was dismissed as Raptors coach in 2000 — said he went back to the drawing board.