The Belleville Senators were founded in 1972 as the New Haven Nighthawks, before becoming the New Haven Senators in 1992 upon becoming the AHL affiliate of the Belleville Senators. A season later they became the Prince Edward Island Senators, before becoming the Binghamton Senators in 2002, where they remained until 2017.
Despite having multiple years left on their lease, in 2017 the team was purchased by the then-owner of the Ottawa Senators, Eugene Melnyk, in order to relocate the franchise to Belleville, Ontario. In 2017-18, the Senators played in the AHL’s North Division along with their Binghamton replacements, the Binghamton Devils.
To combat travel restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the 2020-21 season, the Senators were part of the AHL’s temporary All Canada Division, along with the Laval Rocket, the Manitoba Moose, the Toronto Marlies, and the Stockton Heat (temporarily in Calgary instead of Stockton, CA, in case of call-ups from the Flames), but they returned to the North Division in 2021-22, where they have remained since.
In the 2022-23 season, the Senators finished with a regular season record of 31-31-6-4, last in the division. They did not make the Calder Cup playoffs. The Senators have never won the Calder Cup as Belleville, but as Binghamton they defeated the Houston Aeros in 2010 to win the franchise’s first and only Calder Cup.
Their current head coach is David Bell, their current GM is Ryan Bowness, and they play out of the CAA Arena.
Notable former Belleville Senators include Josh Norris, Drake Batherson and Thomas Chabot.