American Powerchair Football Confederation APFC

Thursday, November 20, 2025

Sunday morning we got up, dressed for church and then headed promptly to Kira’s ward. It was their primary program and while primary programs are always special, this one was even more so because it was Pipers last primary program and so the last one for Kira’s family.

After church we swallowed a quick lunch and then headed to the Ability 360 gym for the opening cermony for the APFC America’s cup.

It was quite the show, and we felt as if we were in a mini-olympics opening cermony. There were six countries competing from both North and South America. The teams all entered from one side of the gymn, made their way around the gym and assembled opposite from us.

The Ability 360 facility is amazing. It is cool to see what they can do when they construct a building that from the ground up is made to accommodate handicapped people. I checked out the bathrooms, the showers and even the dressing rooms. The dressing rooms have a ledge with a water proof mattress on it where the athletes can be dressed.

Back to the opening ceremonies. Jayden carried the Canadian flag but Evan was asked to hold the back of the flag to keep it unfurled so that it would show better.

Once the teams were all assembled facing us, they then turned around and faced the presenters and they had slide shows, speaches and an amputee sang several songs. He was good.

Following the opening ceremonies, all the teams left the floor except for the two playing in the first game and the competition was underway.

Evans first game was with Uruguay at 5:00 Sunday. This was a team that they should have been able to beat, but the coaches seem to think that they are still coaching little league. I suppose this would be tough for them, because they have only coached in regular games which are all about inclusivity. In fact, the entire concept of power soccer is inclusivity. I am forever grateful that Evan has been able to play power soccer since he was seven years old when a player let him try out his power soccer chair. The picture above is Evan and Jayden on team Canada and here they are when they were seven.

While that is all true, and we should never loose track of what power soccer is all about, it seems to me that once you get to the level of competing for the world championship, you should be doing all that you can to win. These coaches still have the attitude that every player should get a chance to play. If they had put their five best players on the floor for the entire game I think they would have won. Instead, each of their seven players. Got a chance to play. To make matters worse, the coach pulled their two best players at the same time. In any case they lost their first game.

It was a round robin so they had a chance to play each of the six countries for a total of five games. Game two was against Brazil at noon. This game went much like game one and we lost this game as well.

Game three was Monday at 3:00 against Argentina. The top three teams will move on to the world championship next September and the undisputed best team in the Americas league is Team USA. They have the most money, they pay their coaches and they have the largest pool from which to pick their players. The second best team would be Argentina who also have paid coaches. No one expected us to win this game. These are the kind of games where you can put your second string on the floor. If you’re clearly going to win or clearly going to lose then give those guys a chance to play. We lost so now we were 0-3.

Lisa had to get back to work and I also had a deadline of sorts, so we headed home after game three. Game four was against the USA Tuesday morning at 9:00. It was no surprise when they lost that game. Our last chance for a win was Tuesday afternoon at 1:30 against Mexico. That was a close game and at the end of regular time it was 0-0. After double overtime it was still 0-0 so it went to a shoot out. I wasn’t there and I don’t really know the rules but I think each player gets a chance to take a penalty shot.

A penalty shot is pretty much a certain goal unless the shooter really messes up. He shoots from so close that if he can hit an empty spot he is pretty certain to get it in. After the penalty shots it was 3-2 for us. While I am admittedly biased, Evan is the best player on the team in any position which also makes him the best goalie on the team. He has been playing longer, has more experience and has played in more competitions than any other player they have. This meant that Evan was the goalie. While all his saves were amazing, one of his saves was truly spectacular.

Check out this link.

The goalie parks in the middle of the net and isn’t allowed to move until the shooter hits the ball. Normally they move the chair forward or backwards to block the ball, but this time, as soon as the shooter touched the ball he circled his chair around and smacked the ball away. Here is a picture but you really need to see the video. 

So that was the tournament, our 1-4 record really doesn’t represent how well we played. In any case, it was a great experience.

And Canada definitely had the biggest and best group of fans.

While the purpose of the trip was to watch Evan play, we did have our day with Bens family on Saturday and celebrated several belated birthdays with Kira’s family.

The sweater that Cameron has is a funny story. They were at our house one day and Cameron found this sweater of Lisa’s. He thought it made a wonderful cape and wore it the whole time he was there. He did not leave it behind willingly. Mom decided it would make a good birthday gift and he loves it.

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The human mind isn't meant to be awake after midnight. It is thought that evolution has caused us to be suspicious, uneasy, restless and paranoid after midnight. That helped us to stay alive when we were hunted by nocturnal predators. 

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