When the Canadian Senior Women’s National Team earned their spot at the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 in Australia this September, the mood was jubilant. On the court together in Osaka, Japan for the first time since the Tokyo Olympics this past August, the team earned its first victory under new head coach Víctor LaPeña.

Amid all of the support flooding in via social media from home, no one was cheering harder than Sami Hill. The 10-year Team Canada veteran was watching live from Germany where she remained in quarantine for COVID-19, unable to participate in the event as planned. Waking up early to watch the games from her apartment in Germany, Hill's heart was in Osaka, Japan with her teammates.  

“I am so excited that our team has qualified for the World Cup in September!” Hill said. “It is a new era for our team and this was a huge first step. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be in Japan with the team, but I was up early to watch the games and cheer them on. I can’t wait to be back all together in the summer and continue working towards our goals.”

It was a wild week for Hill, who found out shortly before she was scheduled to travel to Osaka that her pro team in Germany had been hit with the virus and she would need to remain in Germany to quarantine which meant missing the qualifying tournament. Over the past two years of this pandemic, Hill has dealt with the ups and downs and disruptions to her basketball routine and schedule as well as anyone. With this latest setback in the rearview, she’s excited to continue her season in Germany and then to join Team Canada this summer in advance of the World Cup.

The 27-year-old Toronto native is playing for Eigner Angels Noerdlingen in Germany’s DBBL this season. This is her second time playing for the organization, following a stint in France prior to the pandemic.

“It's been amazing,” Hill said. “I love it, I love the experience of living in a different country, experiencing the culture, and meeting new people.”

Hill is the middle child in her family, sandwiched between two older brothers and a younger sister. It was watching her brothers play basketball during her childhood years that stoked a love of the game that has only grown with time.

“My sister and I would always run onto the court at their games at halftime and shoot,” she said. “That’s when I really fell in love with it. It was so much fun, watching them play and then pretending to be them at halftime.”

She says that her brothers were the first people who inspired her athletic quest, but it wasn’t long before WNBA superstar Diana Taurasi figured into things as well.

One of Hill’s fondest memories is watching UConn Huskies women's basketball games with her grandmother, the original Taurasi fan in the family. Today she says her grandparents continue to be her biggest fans. While her grandmother is still watching basketball whenever she can, her grandfather has found ways to stay up on everything happening with Hill’s basketball schedule in Germany.

“My grandpa is all over everything,” she said. “He'll find articles, ones I didn't even know existed, and they're all over his Facebook. My grandma, she’s still at the top of her game.”

Hill first started playing for Canada Basketball when she made the Junior National Team in 2012. She’s been with the program every summer since. She says her experience with the program has been incredible and that the relationships she’s built with her fellow Canadian teammates are forever.

‍“They're teammates for life, my sisters for life,” she said. “It’s just so amazing that I get to spend my summers with them. Every time I get to step out on the court with them, whether in practice or games, it's so much fun and it's pretty indescribable.”

Hill was in high school when she realized that playing professional basketball was her dream. Knowing she wanted to go overseas to make this happen meant having to leave her siblings and family behind for much of the year. Despite the distance, the tight-knit family stays in constant contact, thanks to FaceTime and group texts. She says she feels extremely lucky to have the support from her loved ones from afar.

“My grandparents and aunts and uncles try to follow every single game online,” she said. “Same with my parents, siblings and friends.”

More than 20 years since she was the little sister racing onto the court at halftime, her basketball journey is still going strong.

“The funniest is when I go back to Toronto in the summer, I'll run into some of their friends at the outdoor courts [and they’ll say], ‘I remember you shooting at our halftime when you were nine! What are you doing with yourself now?’ and I say, ‘Well, I'm still shooting,'" Hill said with a laugh.

Still shooting, still scoring, and still living out her basketball dream while also becoming a role model to many young girls growing up with their own hoop dreams.

“I think that’s pretty surreal,” she said. “Even here in Germany, we often work with schools or camps and there's young girls and even young boys that are like, ‘Wow, you're a professional basketball player? This is your job?’ It's really, really great. I love working with kids, and it's funny to see or hear that I am a role model because I still have some role models of my own.”

While Hill has appreciated each step in her journey, what surprises her most is how quickly the time has passed. Now more than a decade into her start with Team Canada, the memories she’s made are all special, but two stand above the rest.

“The 2017 FIBA AmeriCup when we won gold against Argentina,” she says immediately. “That was my first time with the Senior Team and my first time with a huge event, and just being there all summer, seeing everything we put into it, playing in a hostile environment in Argentina against Argentina. Wow. It was just an amazing experience overall, and I will definitely never forget that. The other one would be February 2020. Being on the team when we qualified for the Olympics [in Belgium].”

With Canada ranked fourth in the FIBA World Ranking Presented by Nike and officially qualified for the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 this September, Hill will have the opportunity to make some more memories. She couldn’t be happier about it.

“Representing Canada means the world to me,” she said. “To represent my country, a country that's done so much for me and continues to do a lot for me, and basketball [which] is a huge part of my life, I've dedicated a lot of time and energy to the game. I absolutely love it. Combining my love for my country and basketball, it’s an honour every time I wear the jersey and step out onto the court for Canada.”