Calgary Surge Host Edmonton Stingers in First Alberta Battle

Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) action will come to Calgary for the first time on Saturday with an all-Alberta matchup between the Edmonton Stingers and Calgary Surge at 4 p.m. MT at WinSport Event Centre. The game will be available for streaming on TSN+, CEBL+ powered by BetVictor and on the CEBL Mobile app available on iOS and Android devices.

The teams will play a home-and-home to tip off the season with another meeting slated for the Edmonton Expo Centre at 4 p.m. MT on Sunday. The Surge are the newest iteration of the Guelph Nighthawks after the franchise relocated to Calgary in the offseason.

In 2022, the Nighthawks and Stingers each finished with a 10-10 record. During the playoffs, Guelph went into Langley Events Centre and defeated the Fraser Valley Bandits but followed up with a 99-78 quarterfinal loss to the Niagara River Lions. Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan Rattlers snapped the Stingers’ title streak last season by knocking off the defending champions in a tight 94-91 playoff game.

Calgary’s two leading scorers in 2022 signed with new teams for the 2023 season. Cat Barber joined the Scarborough Shooting Stars and Ahmed Hill signed with the Montreal Alliance. Key contributor TJ Lall also left to sign with Niagara. However, the team brought a collection of players from last year’s squad west with them. Sean Miller-Moore, Maurice Calloo, Stef Smith and Clayton Henry all signed with the Surge.

Miller-Moore averaged 7 points per game on 54 per cent shooting with Guelph last season and represented the CEBL at the Basketball Champions League Americas tournament with the Brampton Honey Badgers. Smith also played with Brampton at the BCLA tournament and averaged 7.6 points in 16 games with the Nighthawks last season. He’s coming off a stellar stretch in Serbia where he averaged upwards of 23 points over 13 games.

The Surge also made some key signings of their own. Americans Trevon Scott, Admon Gilder and Kylor Kelley will look to make an impact for Calgary after signing for 2023. Scott is a 6’8 forward out of Cincinnati who most recently averaged over 17 points and almost 7 rebounds in the NBA G-League. Gilder is a guard out of Gonzaga and Texas A&M who averaged over 18 pints in 30 professional games across the globe, while Kelley is a seven-footer with three years of professional experience in the G-League, England and Denmark.

Calgary also added Canadian talent to bolster their roster this season in Mason Bourcier and Simi Shittu. Bourcier was drafted with the third pick in the 2023 U Sports Draft after doing it all for the Trinity Western Spartans during the university season and providing solid minutes for the Newfoundland Growlers in the CEBL last year. Shittu, a dual British-Canadian centre with experience in the NBA preseason and four seasons in the G League, signed with Calgary and could play a major role this season.

Meanwhile, the two-time CEBL champion Edmonton Stingers will look to get back to their winning ways in 2023. Former CEBL Canadian Player of the Year Jordan Baker switches from the court to the sideline as he takes over for Jermaine Small as the Stingers’ head coach. Baker was previously the lead assistant for his alma mater at the University of Alberta and is the current head coach of the NAIT Ooks.

Baker is joined by former teammates Adika Peter-McNeilly, Aher Uguak and Brody Clarke as returners from last year’s squad. Peter-McNeilly was the CEBL Sixth Man of the Year during Edmonton’s 2021 championship run and has averaged 10.7 points per game in 60 CEBL regular season appearances. Clarke won the 2020 title with the Stingers and returned last season to average a team-high 12.9 points. In his first professional season last year, Uguak made an impact by contributing 9.7 points per game, including a career-high 21 against Ottawa in July.

The Stingers also made key additions in Chandler Vaudrin, Nick Hornsby and Carlton Bragg Jr. Bragg, a 6’10 forward from Cleveland, previously played in Poland, Mexico and Turkey. In the past two seasons in the Turkish Basketball Federation, Bragg averaged over 15 points and 8 rebounds per game. The Chicago-born Hornsby brings scoring, rebounding and 100 games of professional experience to the Stingers in Germany and Israel. Meanwhile, Vaudrin comes to the Stingers with an NBA pedigree, signing a pre-season deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers before suiting up for their G-League affiliate in 2022.

All CEBL games can also be streamed live on the league’s OTT platform, CEBL+ Powered by BetVictor and on the CEBL’s official app, CEBL Mobile, available on iOS and Android devices.

A league created by Canadians for Canadians with a mission to develop Canadian players, coaches, sports executives, and referees, the CEBL boasts the highest percentage of Canadian players of any pro league in the country with 71 percent of its 2022 rosters being Canadian. Players bring experience from the NBA, NBA G League, top international pro leagues, the Canadian National team program, and top NCAA programs as well as U SPORTS. Nine players have moved from the CEBL into the NBA following a CEBL season, and 28 CEBL players attended NBA G League training camps during October. The CEBL season runs from May through August. More information about the CEBL is available at CEBL.ca and @cebleague on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook & YouTube.