Charger Challenge

Wow, I can't believe that the first annual Charger Challenge is complete. A little bit of surprising news kicked off our tournament as unfortunately the MHS Chariots were sidelined by a bus breakdown. I have not heard that many details about what exactly happened, but I hope that everything is all right now and everyone is safe. Nevertheless, we had some intense competition with the Northeast Passage PowerCats of Durham, New Hampshire. Because of the last-minute cancellation, the schedule was not quite the way it had been drawn up, but it was still awesome. The basic layout involved two games where both teams played whomever they wanted, but a third game was played in the middle for players who are newer to power soccer. All of that being said, the Chargers swept the three-game series with scores of 6-2, 8-4, and 7-0. What impressed me the most by our team was that we rotated between two main lines and both looked incredibly solid. I think that we showed our depth very well, and that says a lot for Sandy, our coach, in that he has helped all of us developed well. In the end, I was pretty excited because I also won the MVP for scoring five goals and tallying one assist. On April 23, we head down to Durham to do it again, so I'm definitely looking forward to it!

Photo by Ashley Anne Tucker

Mandatory Power Soccer

I think that power soccer should be made mandatory for everyone who is able to play. Okay, maybe mandatory is the wrong way to do it because then you would have a bunch of people who really didn't want to play, and that would make the atmosphere much more miserable. However, it would be cool if it became more widespread. I think that more people would like to play if they actually knew what it was. I hadn't heard of it until I started playing, so I bet the same would apply to other people. Imagine how fun it would be though if power soccer did become mandatory. It would cause all school physical education departments to buy equipment, and everyone would have to learn how to play. At larger high schools, they could have their own team on the varsity level and compete with other large high schools. In smaller places like Vermont, there could be regional teams with 3, 4, or 5 high schools banding together to play. Imagine that this happened everywhere. We would have thousands of teams. Maybe it will never become mandatory, but let's shoot for those thousands of teams and see what we can really do.

Newsletter Update

Well, I just got my newsletter from the USPSA. There are some exciting developments going on. For one, Team USA has another training camp coming up, so that'll be great for them as they continue their trek towards world dominance later this year. I am predicting another World Cup victory. Another very cool development is that ATG Rehab is beginning to show the USPSA marketing DVD that we probably all have seen in their waiting rooms. This could very well bring in many new players because obviously it is a very targeted market segment. Unfortunately, I don't think we have any of these in Vermont, so while it won't necessarily help our team directly, it will help us in the sense that more power soccer players around the country means more competition for us. Who knows, maybe this will help start more teams in New York and Pennsylvania. Each needs of these states only have one team right now, but they have so much population that I am sure more teams could be easily put together. The biggest hurdle is honestly awareness, so hopefully through this partnership, power soccer will become more recognizable and gain many more players who are excited about the game.

Funding

I think that this ridiculous weather needs to stop. I loved yesterday morning and afternoon as it was up in the 40s, but it was snowing by last night, and that is not a fun. However, there is hope that we might break 50 by the end of the week, so that would be relatively rare in mid February. Nevertheless, I am ready for winter to be over. Anyway, I have been thinking about power soccer as usual. An interesting new development is fund-raising. It is interesting to think about how to promote and find money for a sport that not many people have heard of. It is also difficult because a lot of our funds potentially could finance things such as travel to national tournaments, so the people who donate this money would not necessarily be able to physically see the return on investment. However, ideally at that point when we are mature enough to travel like that, we would have enough respect from other teams around the country to bring some of them in here to play. Nevertheless, I think we have an amazing group of people who absolutely love to compete. Therefore I have no doubt that we will figure something out.

Photo by Public Domain Photos on Flickr

Happy New Year!

So, 2010 is almost done. 2011 starts tomorrow, and it is going to be a big year for the power soccer community. Why will it be so big? The second World Cup is being held this time in Paris. Even though the Paralympics decided not to include power soccer on their roster of events yet, it is great that there is still an international competition that promotes the highest level of play and competition. However, I think that there are other reasons why it will be such a great year for power soccer. It seems like the USPSA is extraordinarily growth focused right now, so I think that we are only going to get more teams and more activity here in America. Although I'm not 100% sure of what is happening in other countries, I would bet that they have a similar scenario to what we have. It seems like once the sport gets going, more teams just keep growing. Therefore, it should be a good year here and abroad. For our team, it should also be a good year as we are growing and learning more and more. Happy New Year to my readers, and see you next year!

Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr

Ref Clinic Recap

So I kind of got my voice back today, so I can write for you all about what happened yesterday power soccer. Essentially, we got to play power soccer for about two hours straight which was pretty awesome. However, before we did that, we had our first official speed test and equipment check. Surprisingly, my chair was too fast by almost a second over 50 feet, but I got turned down and we are all good now I think. Also, I learned how my guard needs to be moved in a little which will be different, but it will definitely need to be done to my guard legal. We kind of like being legal I guess... Anyway, after all of the official stuff, we started to play. The first half we played Chargers versus Power Cats and I think that we all played pretty well. Following that and for the rest of the afternoon, JC Russo of the Circle City Rollers and Team USA joined with the Power Cats and we continued playing until four o'clock. It was definitely a great time for all of us, and the best part was that we now have certified referees to play official games from now on. Thank you to everyone who came out to watch us as well as the referees who came out to become certified. Thank you to the Northeast Passage for being great hosts! Finally, thank you to Chris Mulholland were driving in from Virginia to teach the referees and Dominic and JC Russo for coming in from Indiana to see us play and play with us.