Rainmakers look to show their skills at North Vancouver's No Regrets Tournament

The Charles Hays Rainmakers are at
their first high profile tournament of the
year this weekend in North Vancouver.

The  Charles Hays Senior Boys Rainmakers are on their first major road trip for the 2016-17 season, making ready for the debut of the No Regrets tournament in North Vancouver, with their first tip off scheduled for later this afternoon.

It's a return visit for the Rainmakers who have made the North Van event one of their early season destinations for a couple of years now, a chance to test their skills against some top flight Lower Mainland competition. The trip south also provides an opportunity to remind those that make the provincial rankings that while the Gymnasiums of Northwestern BC may be far from their comfort zones, there is some highly entertaining basketball being played outside the Greater Vancouver area.

A strong showing at the No Regrets should help to get the Rainmakers back on the radar of the Basketball observers of the south and as they head into today's opening game a bit of motivation for the Rainmakers might be found from the pages of the Vancouver Province.

Yesterday the BC coaches second poll for 2016-17 was released and once again the Rainmakers were not included in the listings of the ten top teams.

And while they probably don't need the extra push to spur on their competitive juices, they no doubt will take note that Terrace's Caledonia received an honourable mention in the AAA rankings for the last week.

The BC Boys Basketball Association rankings for December 7th, 2016

The first test for Charles Hays at the No Regrets tourney arrives at 2:10 PM when the Rainmakers take on Collingwood Secondary one of the host teams for the event.

And while the Rainmakers have had a long trek to take part in the tourney they won't win the come from farthest away for 2016, among the fifteen other teams competing this weekend are one team from Edmonton and another from the Northwest Territories.

Tournament play continues through until Saturday and the 8 PM finale at Collingwood Secondary.

The Rainmakers had an opportunity for a tune up match on Wednesday evening, taking on 3rd ranked Kitsilano which plays one level above the Charles Hays team in AAAA. In a high tempo game, the Rainmakers gave the Kits team a good run for their night of hoops, eventually finding the challenge a bit too hard to overcome with the Rainmakers on the wrong side of the 81-66 final.

The chance to test themselves against a high energy squad like the Kitsilano team should help get them charged up for today's opener and what may come as the weekend moves forward.

The No Regrets Website features a number of items for review, from the history of the tournament to a schedule for the three days of tournament play and a page for results as the play continues through the weekend.

The Tournament Records page features a familiar name for Rainmaker fans with Justin McChesney, now playing University ball with the UBC Thunderbirds, listed in a number of categories from the 2015 event.

Some notes from the Lower Mainland on the tournament can be found below:

December 2 -- No Regrets tournament ready to take off

You can get updates on the 2016 trip to North Vancouver from the CHSS Twitter feed.

We have a Tournament results page ready for updating as the weekend play delivers results, you can find it here.

Any updated news items related to the tournament will be included on the Results page as well.

More notes on all of the Rainmaker Sports programs can be found on our archive page.