Calgary surges to CEBL Championship weekend

The CEBL Championship weekend didn't exactly get off to a flying start for the Calgary Surge.

They were supposed to fly to Montreal on Monday night but the hail storm in Calgary cancelled their flight.

So on Tuesday after practice, the team had to bus to Edmonton and take the red-eye to Montreal.

Centre Jordy Tshimanga says the delay was tough but you just have to move on.

"It's just nature," said the 6'11" (210.82 cm) native of Montreal.

"You can't do nothing with nature. You just have to let God do what he does and keep moving forward. We're going to figure it out and we've just got to figure out another plan and move forward."

Championship weekend, 2nd year in a row

The Surge are heading to the Championship weekend for the second year in a row.

The Surge faced the Scarborough Shooting Stars in last year's final and ended up losing 82-70.

Guard Rugzy Miller-Moore remembers that game well.

It still stings and provides plenty of motivation to get back to the final and get the job done this time around.

"It hurt a lot and it's definitely motivation for the returners this year and just kind of piggybacking guys and letting them know what it means to us to get this win and get back to Championship weekend," he said.

"We try to treat every game the same. We don't treat any game differently and just go hard and try our best and hopefully come out with the win."

Taking on the Bandits first

The Surge take on the Vancouver Bandits on Friday afternoon and the winner of that game will advance to the Championship final on Sunday.

Tshimanga knows they're in for a battle against the Bandits.

"Oh, it's a pretty physical team," he said.

"They have a lot of tools at every position, so it's going to take us the same grit to come out of there and fly around and do what we do.

"It's going to take focus and it's going to take the whole team to stay together and just work and grind through this whole week."

Tale of two seasons

This has been a strange season for the Surge.

They started off with a 1-4 record but were able to rebound and finish at 11-9.

Head coach Tyrell Vernon says it's not how you start but how you finish.

"It just took us time," he said.

"I always said, even though we were losing games, that we're getting better. ... We just weren't getting better to win games at that time. We've just constantly gotten better.

Defensively has been our calling card and when we defend and fly around and take certain things away from different opponents, we've been successful, so hopefully, we can bring that into Championship weekend."