Three-year agreement with Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment makes CWENCH™ the Official Sports Drink of the Maple Leafs and the presenting partner of Maple Leafs Training Camp, and makes the Company an Official Sponsor of the Toronto Marlies.
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA – September 29, 2026 – Cizzle Brands Corporation (Cboe Canada: CZZL; OTCQB: CZZLF; Frankfurt: 8YF) (“Cizzle Brands” or the “Company”), the sports nutrition company that is elevating the game in health and wellness, today announced that it has entered into a multi-year agreement (the “Agreement”) with Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (“MLSE”) making CWENCH Hydration the Official Sports Drink of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Marlies®.
The Agreement comes three months after the Maple Leafs selected Gavin McKenna first overall at the 2026 NHL Draft and two years after McKenna joined Team CWENCH. Cizzle marked McKenna’s selection by the Leafs in June with the launch of Draft Day Blue, a blue cherry flavour of CWENCH.
Under the Agreement, CWENCH will be the exclusive sports drink partner of the Maple Leafs in the team’s home market. CWENCH also becomes the presenting partner of the Maple Leafs Training Camp each season during the term of the Agreement and of Maple Leafs Development Camp starting in 2027. The Agreement further gives Cizzle a presence across the Maple Leafs’ ecosystem: virtual dasherboard advertising during the broadcasts of 20 home games at Scotiabank Arena each season; rinkboards and murals at the Ford Performance Centre, where the team practises; digital and social media inventory; and product sampling at select home games. CWENCH will also be on the Toronto Marlies bench at Coca-Cola Coliseum in CWENCH branded bottles and towels.
Cizzle will also bring the partnership to retail shelves across the Greater Toronto Area, beginning with Draft Day Blue featuring Gavin McKenna in a 500 mL Tetra Pak ready-to-drink format, which is expected to be available at select retailers beginning in October
The connection between the Leafs and Cizzle runs deeper than McKenna alone. CWENCH Hydration was formulated by Andy O’Brien, Cizzle Brands’ Chief Performance Officer, who was recently named Vice President of Sports Performance for the Toronto Maple Leafs. CWENCH is an all-natural, zero-sugar sports drink with five electrolytes, just 10 calories, and no caffeine or artificial flavours or colours. CWENCH ready-to-drink products are made in Tetra Pak packaging at The CWENCH Hydration Factory, the Company’s manufacturing facility, which gives Cizzle the speed to take a product from concept to shelf on the timeline the moment demands.
The Agreement is Cizzle’s second with a National Hockey League club, following the September 2025 announcement that CWENCH Hydration is the Official Sports Drink of the Ottawa Senators, and extends a strategy of putting CWENCH wherever the game is played, from community rinks to NHL arenas. CWENCH Hydration is also the Official Hydration Partner of USA Hockey, the New York State Amateur Hockey Association, the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association, and Minnesota Hockey, and holds the naming rights to CWENCH Centre, a Canlan Sports Community, in Toronto.
“From a business standpoint, this is the most valuable designation a sports drink can hold in Canada,” said John Celenza, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Cizzle Brands. “Toronto is the centre of the hockey world, and the Maple Leafs have the most passionate fans in the sport. This partnership puts CWENCH at training camp, on the broadcast, and on shelves across the Maple Leafs’ home market. We signed Gavin because we believed he would be a first overall pick. Now he is in the blue and white, and so is CWENCH. We could not be prouder to stand with Gavin and the Maple Leafs.”
“CWENCH has earned its place in hockey the right way, one rink at a time, from the grassroots up to the NHL, and it already shares a story with one of our newest Maple Leafs,” said Jordan Vader, Senior Vice President, Global Partnerships, MLSE. “We’re proud to welcome CWENCH Hydration as the Official Sports Drink of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Cizzle Brands Corporation is a vertically integrated sports nutrition company that is elevating the game in health and wellness. Through extensive collaboration and testing with leading athletes and trainers across several sports, Cizzle Brands has launched three game-changing brands: (i) CWENCH Hydration™, a better-for-you sports drink that is now carried in over 6,900 locations in Canada, the United States, and Europe; (ii) Spoken™ Nutrition, a premium brand of athlete-grade nutraceuticals that carry the prestigious NSF Certified for Sport® qualification; and (iii) HappiEats™, upgrading everyday eats with high-performance foods such as Sport Pasta™ and SnakStars™ Sport Bites. It also owns and operates The CWENCH Hydration Factory, a manufacturing facility that produces CWENCH Hydration and other leading beverage brands in Tetra Pak packaging. All Cizzle Brands products are designed to help people of all ages achieve their best in competitive sports and in living a healthy, vibrant, active lifestyle.
For more information about Cizzle Brands, please visit: https://www.cizzlebrands.com
For more information about CWENCH Hydration™, please visit: https://www.cwenchhydration.com
For more information about Spoken™ Nutrition, please visit: https://www.spokennutrition.com
For more information about HappiEats™, please visit: https://www.myhappieats.com
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Company,
“John Celenza”
John Celenza, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer
For further information, please contact:
Setti Coscarella
Head of Corporate Development
1-844-588-2088
Victoria Malisani
Manager, Communications, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment
victoria.malisani@MLSE.com
This news release contains "forward-looking information" which may include, but is not limited to, information with respect to the activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, such as, but not limited to: expected financial results, manufacturing efficiency, growth strategy, retail expansion and product launches, scaling of production capacity, new products of the Company and potential sales and distribution opportunities, and the anticipated benefits of the Agreement, including expected brand exposure and consumer adoption. Such forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified bythe use of words and phrases such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Various assumptions or factors are typically applied in drawing conclusions or making the forecasts or projections set out in forward-looking information. Those assumptions and factors are based on information currently available to the Company.
Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other risk factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such risks include risks related to increased competition and current global financial conditions, access and supply risks, reliance on key personnel, operational risks (including manufacturing facility utilization rates, dependency on third-party co-manufacturing volume commitments, and production line efficiencies), reliance on third-party logistics (3PL) providers and outsourced supply chain networks, dependency on single-source or third-party suppliers for raw materials and packaging inputs (including outsourced proprietary flavour formulations), the receipt of approvals from MLSE and the National Hockey League required under the Agreement, regulatory risks, financing, capitalization and liquidity risks. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation, except as otherwise required by law, to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors change.
The Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Marlies names and logos are trademarks of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Partnership and are used under licence.
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