TORONTO - This is one of the biggest summers ever for Canada’s women’s senior basketball team.

It is one that players like Brampton’s Tamara Tatham and Shay Colley have been looking forward to for a long time.

They will compete for Canada at the Pan American Games at the Ryerson Athletic Centre, but Canada will also be sending the same group of athletes to the FIBA America’s Olympic qualifying tournament in Edmonton in August. For players who have travelled all over the world to play, the chance to have two major competitions in Canada is a rare opportunity.

Tatham, 30, a 6-foot-1 forward has a lengthy basketball resume. She is a graduate of Chinguacousy Secondary and the University of Massachusetts. She has been with the national team for nine years and has played 123 international games with the senior national team. Currently playing professionally in Slovakia, she has also played in Finland and Germany.

Tatham was a member of the Canadian team, which reached the quarterfinals of the 2012 Olympics. Last summer she was the fourth leading scorer and fifth in rebounds and steals per game at the world championships.

Colley, at19, is one of the rising stats in Canadian basketball. A graduate of St. Edmund Campion, she is committed to attend the University of South Carolina, one of the top teams in the NCAA.

The 5-foot-8 guard is in training camp with the senior national team and is listed as an alternate for the Pan Am Games. She has already played 25 international games. That included in 2014, when she led Canada in scoring, averaging 12.8 points, as Canada finished second at the under-18 FIBA Americas tournament.

In 2013, she helped Canada to come seventh at the under-19 world championships.

In 2012 she won a bronze at the under-17 world championship, leading Canada in assists and was fifth in the tournament in steals.

Canada opens preliminary play on July 16 against Venezuela, faces Argentina on July 17 and Cuba on July 18. All games are at 6 p.m. Placement games and semifinals are July 19 with the medal games on July 20.