MarkyB denies rumors of Bance leaving Toronto Ultra after leaked DMs

Toronto Ultra Call of Duty League head coach Mark ‘MarkyB’ Bryceland has denied rumors that Ben ‘Bance’ Bance is leaving the team, after FaZe Clan’s Thomas ‘ZooMaa’ Paparatto accidentally leaked DMs from the European star.

Toronto Ultra were one of the real surprise packages of the 2021 CDL season on Black Ops Cold War. After a rough start, they brought in Jamie ‘Insight’ Craven to replace Anthony ‘Methodz’ Zinni and their fortunes completely turned around.

Toronto became CDL Stage 2 champions and were constant contenders throughout the remainder of the season, even becoming runners-up at the 2021 CDL Championship. One of the best storylines for fans , though, was the revival of Bance, who was even contemplating retirement just weeks before their Stage 2 victory.

On November 22, though, ZooMaa accidentally leaked a series of DMs between Bance and LA Guerrillas’ Obaid ‘Asim’ Asim, in which Bance said he’s “probs [sic] getting dropped for Hicksy.”

With Charlie ‘Hicksy’ Hicks being a highly-regarded amateur player and Toronto Ultra substitute, many fans believed the rumor could be true — but Mark has put an end to that discussion.

• Read More: Dexerto’s Toronto Ultra CDL documentary

“I can confirm, we’re not making any changes to our starting roster,” he said. “Our season has started off incredibly in and out of game.”

He went on to explain in another comment that Bance had made a “tongue in cheek comment which he clearly never thought would be shared publicly and scrutinized.”

It sounds as though MarkyB has no plans to remove Bance from the Toronto Ultra starting roster, so Canadians need not worry about their franchise team’s leader for now.

In an exclusive comment to Dexerto, MarkyB said: “I’d like to confirm we have no intentions of making a change to our starting roster before the start of the season. If you know Ben, he’s a bit of a troll so due to the guys pushing their flights back to stay in Toronto a little longer during our week off, he made a comment to Asim that’s obviously been taken out of context and added some confusion.

“Obviously, we’d rather not have to explain ourselves or even have this type of speculation so I’ll be talking with the guys about what we’re communicating to other players and ensuring stuff like this doesn’t happen in the future”