CEBL Announces 2023 Game Schedule as Season Set to Tip May 24

The Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) unveiled its 2023 season schedule Tuesday as it enters a milestone fifth season. The regular season will see 100 regular season games played in 56 days across 10 Canadian cities in six provinces. The season tips off May 24 when the 2022 CEBL champion Brampton Honey Badgers head to the nation’s capital to face off against the Ottawa BlackJacks at TD Place Arena at 7:30 p.m. local.

The CEBL also announced a conference model of competition for its fifth season. The league’s 10 teams are divided into an Eastern and Western Conference for the first-time in league history. The Western Conference includes the Calgary Surge, Edmonton Stingers, Saskatchewan Rattlers, Vancouver Bandits and Winnipeg Sea Bears. The Eastern Conference includes the Brampton Honey Badgers, Montréal Alliance, Niagara River Lions, Ottawa BlackJacks, and Scarborough Shooting Stars.

“The fifth season of the CEBL promises to be historical in many ways as we not only introduce our brand of basketball to new markets but also celebrate the league’s five-year journey in becoming Canada’s preeminent professional basketball league,” said Mike Morreale, commissioner and co-founder of the CEBL. “The CEBL is a Canadian basketball mainstay, and we are looking forward to its milestone fifth season with a brand new conference model of play and an exciting postseason format.”

The 2023 Championship Weekend takes place in Vancouver from August 11-13. Host Vancouver, along with the top-ranked team from the Eastern Conference, will automatically be seeded into the semifinals hosted at Championship Weekend.

The regular season schedule includes 10 tripleheaders and 24 doubleheaders with 38 games falling on weekends. The schedule of nationally televised games will be announced at a later date. All games including playoffs will be live-streamed on the CEBL’s OTT platform, CEBL+, and on CEBL Mobile, the official app of the CEBL (available on Android and iOS devices).

The CEBL postseason will feature play-in games between the third and fourth-ranked teams in each conference. Winners will advance to the quarterfinals and play the second-best team of their respective conferences. The fifth-ranked team in each conference will be eliminated unless Vancouver places fifth in the west in which case the fourth-ranked west team will get eliminated. Quarterfinal winners in each conference will play their respective conference teams already seeded in the semifinals. The full postseason schedule will be revealed at a later date.

The CEBL also unveiled a commemorative logo in celebration of its milestone fifth season. Etched in the CEBL’s brand colours of black and gold, the logo contains the number “5” with names of past champions (players and head coaches), all-CEBL team members, and award winners from the past four years embossed in its background. Five maple leaves and the years 2019 and 2023 on each side of the official CEBL logo further commemorate the league’s five season journey.

FULL SEASON SCHEDULE:  cebl.ca/schedule

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.