Hoops Provincials confirmed for April 8-10

High school basketball players in Nova Scotia will be relieved to hear plans are now official to hold full provincial championships this year.

School Sport Nova Scotia recently announced comprehensive formats for tournaments in Divisions 1 to 3, which will be held April 8-10. All events will feature a full complement of eight schools, which will include a host and a designated number of qualifiers from each region. The number of tournament spots allocated for each division was based proportionally on how many teams are in the respective regions.

The only change is there won’t be an extra play-in stage like most years because of the compressed time frame. All regionals must be completed by April 2.

The Division 1 girls’ provincials will be hosted by the Capital region champion and three other metro teams will also be invited, plus two from Northumberland and one each from Western and Highland. The Division 1 boys' tournament will be hosted by Cobequid Educational Centre and the highest-rank Northumberland team will also attend, along with four Capital region teams and one each from Highland

and Western.

The Highland champs will host the Division 2 boys’ event and the other openings will be filled as follows: four from Western, two from Capital and one from Northumberland. Island View High School will host the Division 2 girls’ provincials and two other Capital teams will join them, as well as three from Western and one each from Highland and from Northumberland.

Division 3 boys’ host Shelburne Regional High School will be joined by one other Western school, three from Northumberland, two from Highland and one from Capital. Highland will have a girls' Division 3 host and one other team, and there will be three schools from Northumberland, two from Western and one from Capital.

There were no provincials in 2021 because of COVID-19.