Calgary’s pro basketball team faces Vancouver Bandits to tip-off Championship Weekend 2023
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The road to CEBL Championship Weekend 2024 has had its ups and downs for the Calgary Surge.
It’s also had its dropped flights and unwelcome re-routes.
Yes … it’s been a long, long journey to the Canadian Elite Basketball League’s final four in Montreal.
“It’s OK,” said Surge leader Sean Miller-Moore, of the team’s travel woes — Monday night’s hailstorm cancelling their direct flight out of Calgary, forcing them to trek by bus to Edmonton late Tuesday for a red-eye flight to Montreal.
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“Definitely a pain in the butt to travel like that,” continued Miller-Moore. “But I think we’ll be excited to be in Montreal with the adrenaline and whatnot.”
And why not?
After all, this weekend is all about a return to the championship and — hopefully — the championship itself for the Surge.
A year ago, Calgary’s first-year club was upended in the finale by the Scarborough Shooting Stars 82-70, helping to ignite a fire under the trio of Surge players still with the team today — including guard Miller-Moore, a CEBL all-Canadian player last year — regardless of the speed bumps encountered along the way.
“We’re in a good place, no matter what,” said 25-year-old Miller-Moore, who returns to CEBL Championship Weekend with holdover teammates Justin Jackson and Jordy Tshimanga. “There’s unfinished business for me. You know … I want to win the semis and go to the championship and actually win this time. So there’s definitely some edge with me.
“I was also hurt going into the championship last year. So now that I’m healthy and I’m trying to stay healthy, I feel like that a lot to prove.”
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First, Miller-Moore and the Surge (13-9) have to prove it against the regular-season’s top team in the CEBL Western Conference when they match up with the Vancouver Bandits (14-6) in the conference final Friday (3:30 p.m. MT, TSN3).
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The winner from that tilt moves on to Sunday’s CEBL Championship match, (4 p.m., TSN2), against the winner of the Eastern Conference final — either the host Montreal Alliance (6-14) or the Niagara River Lions (14-6).
That winner will be crowned champion — a title which, of course, eluded the Surge last summer.
“We’re back,” said Surge forward Jackson. “This is Year 2 for me. Second year with the Surge, and Year 2 being at championship weekend. Last year, we fell a little bit short. But this year, it’s trying to get it done — do whatever I can to help to get some hardware.
“I feel like for any competitors or like any basketball player going through a situation where you lost and now — fast-forward a year later — you have an opportunity to kind of retrace your steps and almost go back in the past and kind of just rewrite some things. You’re excited for that and you’ll try to use that for your advantage.”
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Neither Jackson nor Miller-Moore feel the need to have to tell their story of last year’s heartbreak to current teammates.
“A lot of these guys are champions too, right?” Jackson said. “Just not necessarily in the CEBL, but they’ve come from championship teams. They’ve played on great teams all over. We have a lot of great players on this roster. No one is new to winning. So you know, it’s just kind of something that everybody’s just really locked in and everybody’s on one page and ready to go.”
“Yeah … everyone here knows the feeling of winning,” agreed Miller-Moore. “A lot of people on our team have come from winning programs. So everyone has had that taste of how winning is … you know. They know how to dial in and what it means to sacrifice and try to find ways to make each other better on the court.”
And unlike the other teams in the final four, the Surge have been dialled in and sacrificing for two playoff games already, having gutted out a dramatic 84-82 edge of the visiting Winnipeg Sea Bears in the conference play-in game last Friday at WinSport before going on the road two nights later for an emphatic 78-69 and conference semifinal victory over the rival Edmonton Stingers.
“You know … we’re a resilient group,” Miller-Moore said. “It’s not how you start — it’s how you finish. We started this season pretty much on the bad side (at 0-3 and 1-4) — everyone was counting us out. We’ve shown tough mentality and stayed the course.”
Even over the rough road travelled.
“Not ideal,” added Jackson of the last few days. “Regardless of whatever is going on, our mind is always set on making it back to that championship game. And that’s what we’re gonna try to do.”
tsaelhof@postmedia.com
http://www.x.com/ToddSaelhofPM
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