Canada’s Michelle Plouffe retires after career with women’s, 3×3 national teams

By Canadian Press on July 28, 2025.

TORONTO — Three-time Olympian Michelle Plouffe has announced her retirement from international basketball.

The 32-year-old from Edmonton was part of Canada’s women’s basketball teams at the 2012 London Games and 2016 Rio Olympics, also helping the program win back-to-back FIBA AmeriCup championships in 2015 and 2017.

She then shifted to 3×3 basketball, where she played — alongside her twin sister Katherine Plouffe — a big role in building the Canadian program from the ground up.

Plouffe led Canada to multiple FIBA 3×3 Women’s Series titles, a silver medal at the 2022 FIBA 3×3 World Cup, and a fourth-place finish at the Paris Olympics.

She is now set to join Canada Basketball’s high-performance staff as 3×3 performance manager.

Plouffe will be honoured during the FIBA 3×3 Women’s Series stop in Edmonton on Aug. 2.

“This journey has always been more than just playing basketball,” Plouffe said in a release. “It’s been about people, purpose, planting seeds and watching them grow.”

“We never set out to be the best team in the world — we set out to be the best people to play with,” Plouffe added. “And we believed the rest would follow. You don’t plant fruit. You plant seeds. We planted encouragement. We planted trust. We planted love. That’s what grew.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 28, 2025.

The Canadian Press