The Brampton Honey Badgers will pick up where they left off when the 2023 Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) season tips off May 24, facing the Ottawa BlackJacks at Ottawa’s TD Arena, site of the 2022 CEBL Championship Weekend where the Honey Badgers were crowned league champion. The Honey Badgers defeated the BlackJacks in the semifinals and then topped the Scarborough Shooting Stars two nights later to capture the title last August. This May the Honey Badgers will again face Scarborough two nights after meeting the BlackJacks, this time in their home-opener at Brampton’s CAA Centre on May 26.
   
The 2023 season will be the Honey Badgers first in Brampton and their fifth season overall. The club permanently relocated to Brampton in November after learning that their arena home in Hamilton, FirstOntario Centre, will be closed for two years for major renovations. The 20-game schedule includes 10 home dates versus Scarborough (twice), Niagara (twice), Winnipeg, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver. Ten road games include visits to Scarborough (twice), Ottawa (twice), Montreal (twice), Winnipeg, Niagara, Saskatchewan, and Vancouver.
   

The Honey Badgers defeated Scarborough, 90-88, on August 14 to win their first CEBL championship and punctuate a 14-6 regular season that was best in the league. They fell to Saskatchewan in the CEBL title game in 2019 and have reached the playoff semifinals three times in four years.
   
Entering its fifth season, the CEBL has announced a conference model of competition. The league’s 10 teams are divided into an Eastern and Western Conference. 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. Scarborough, Ottawa, Niagara, and the Honey Badgers were the final four teams competing at Championship Weekend in 2022.
 
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 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 announced at a later date.
   
The CEBL’s schedule of nationally televised games will be announced at a later date, but all games including playoffs will be livestreamed and archived on the CEBL’s OTT platform, CEBL+, and on CEBL Mobile, the official app of the CEBL (available on Android and iOS devices).

Deposits for season tickets, as well as group packages, are on sale now at honeybadgers.ca/tickets or by telephone at (905) 522-BALL. Individual game tickets are expected to go on sale in the spring.

Highlights of Brampton’s 20-game regular-season schedule include:

• The Honey Badgers square off against rival Scarborough twice at the CAA Centre and twice at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre
• Four of the Honey Badgers first six games will come at home, and four of their final six games will come on the road
• The Winnipeg Sea Bears, the CEBL’s new expansion team, make their only visit to Brampton in 2023 on Thursday, June 1
• Brampton will host Montreal on Wednesday, June 7 in a special School Day Game, a morning matinee open exclusively to area school students
• All CEBL clubs play one back-to-back pair of games in 2023, with Brampton’s coming July 28 at Scarborough and July 29 versus Niagara—the final two games of the regular season
• Five of Brampton’s 10 home games fall on Wednesdays. The team plays three Fridays, one Thursday, and one Saturday at home.
• The Honey Badgers’ longest road trip of the season is a three-game outing to Vancouver, Saskatchwan, and Montreal in mid-July

More information about the Brampton Honey Badgers can be found at honeybadgers.ca and @HoneyBadgersCan on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook.

About the CEBL: 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 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 and YouTube.

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Media Contact:
Laura Shatka
Senior Manager, Events & Marketing
Brampton Honey Badgers Professional Basketball Club
lshatka@honeybadgers.ca