The B. League announced Saturday night that its All-Star festivities, slated for the weekend of Jan. 15-16 in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, have been canceled after local authorities denied the league permission to hold the event.
The news came only one day after the professional basketball circuit had decided to move forward with the annual Winter Classic at Adastria Mito Arena despite a new state of emergency that began Friday in Tokyo and neighboring Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama Prefectures.
Mito is home of the second-division Ibaraki Robots.