Canada's 3x3 women's basketball team aims to put finishing touches on standout season

Life on the 3x3 basketball women's series can be a grind — just look at Kacie Bosch.

Since cutting her face open as Canada earned silver at June's World Cup in Belgium, Bosch and the rest of the Canadian squad has travelled from Edmonton to Romania to Quebec to France and back home to Montreal, winning plenty of basketball games along the way.

Now, the team — which typically features sisters Katherine and Michelle Plouffe, along with Bosch and Paige Crozon — is back in Romania for the Women's Series Final as the top seed. The event begins on Saturday.

A victory in Constanta would cap off a near-flawless season, in which the foursome went unbeaten en route to winning all three events they played together. Only Crozon played all five events, where Canada still placed third and fourth, respectively, without its full squad.

Michelle Plouffe said Bosch's bloodied face encapsulates the sport.

"Because it's about toughness and grit and passion and sometimes you bleed, sometimes injuries happen," Plouffe said after the World Cup. "But just the character of the players on this tour and in this sport is just toughness. And Kacie Bosch is an incredible example of that."

The sport debuted as an Olympic sport at Tokyo 2020, but Canada's women were denied a shot at qualifying due to a rules quirk limiting most countries to one gender. The Canadian men failed to advance out of the qualifying tournament.

Plouffe said that denial has been a motivating factor.

Starting from their second-place finish at last year's final, the Canadian women have made it abundantly clear they intend not only to participate at the Paris Olympics in 2024, but to reach the podium.

Canada Basketball CEO Michael Bartlett agrees.

"We've got lightning in a bottle