The final day was beautiful in Irving Texas. The warm weather with a beautiful breeze was great to wake up to.

​As we boarded the bus to the gym the players looked like they had a sense of accomplishment in their faces. They just played four complete games with no substitutions and managed wins against two tough teams and where about to play for 3rd place and a chance to win the bronze medal.

For the second year in a row Edmonton will play against Boise for the bronze medal at the RISE tournament. We have played against each other in almost every US tournament over the last two years with Edmonton winning the last three including two convincing wins over them this season. One in September at the "Slam on the Sound" in Seattle Washington and a lopsided win in November at the "Rumble" in Reno Nevada.

This time around was different because the Steel Wheels had a short bench and Boise’s quad amp was playing like a machine after spending the most of year down in San Diego learning from the veterans of the Sharp team. We knew it was going to be a tough game. 

It started as our games usually do. A few unforced errors, a few poorly thrown passes and burning three time outs in the first 6 minutes of the game. We quickly found our backs up against the wall and in a hole down by 7. After rallying the troops we didn’t lose any ground and held on to our final time out until the middle of the second quarter. The game went into the half with the Steel Wheels still down by 7. 

Starting the second half everyone dug in deep and came out of the gate fast. Forcing turnovers which caused the Bombers to start arguing with each other which caused them to make mistakes at both ends of the court. We where able to pull with in 2 by the end of the 3rd quarter. 

Unfortunately after 4 full games and 3 quarters of ironman rugby we hit the wall!!!  Boise’s steady pressure and the speed of the quad amp turned out to be too much in the home stretch. Final score 53-44 for Boise and we finished in 4th place.

Proud of everyone for playing hard and not giving up, for keeping your composure and for winning and losing with grace with no excuses. My hat goes off to the six athletes from Edmonton who made the journey to Irving TX this weekend. You showed grit and determination and what Steel Wheels rugby was all about. Ali your work with the equipment was second to none.We didn’t walk away empty handed though…

Cody won best of class 2.0 and Rob won Most Sportsman Like Player

Great Job goes out to the organizers RISE Adaptive Sports and the crew of Paul, Peanut and Ken for running a great event. I can speak for all of us when I say "It was fun and we are looking forward to getting back home"

The team was in good spirits starting day 2 of the RISE tournament. We had breakfast together and shared a few jokes about the older players on our team. No matter how the conversations starts jokes about Dale’s eye brows always come up. 


This morning the guys where ready to play. Up first was the #1 team of the tournament the St. Louis Rams. We lost 58-38 but the score doesn’t tell how our team played. Goal for Goal most of the time. We matched speed for speed and we played them hard. It was a ton of unforced errors that summed it up. Long passes to a wide open players, poor transitioning and a few 10 no bounces. We played hard as a team had fun doing it. 

Second game was so far the best of the tournament for the Steel Wheels. Up against the Denver Harlequins. A win here and a win against the Boise Bombers tomorrow secured us 3rd place in the final standings. Knowing they have a chance to get on the podium the Steel Wheels who have played every minute of every game had something to prove and it showed as the game started differently for us, for the first time we wen’t up by 3 right off the hop. As the 1st quarter went on fatigue started showing it’s ugly head as a couple of the players took costly penalties allowing the outplayed Harlequins to get back into the game. We took a late 2nd quarter penalty for a bump on a low pointer which was called flagrant foul by the refs and we had to play a man down for 3 goals or 3 minutes. Then a senseless reach by another player in the back court while another player was in the box forced us to play two players down and for two minutes and lose our lead for the first time in the game. After we called a bench time out and refocused the troops. We took the court running.  After a couple of quick turnovers we re-took the lead and slowly built a comfortable cushion beating the tired Harlequins on every position on the court. The final score 58-47 for the Steel Wheels.

Tonight will be uneventful. Dinner, bed and get ready for Boise in the morning. Stay tuned!! 

Riding the RISE Adaptive Sports bus to the gym the steel wheels where is great spirits. Even with 5 players they all slept good and where ready to play. As we exited the bus everyone was greeted with the inviting sounds of chair on chair hits. The earlier game had The university of Texas playing against the Denver Harlequins. We where surprised to see that Texas was up by 25 heading into the 4th quarter. 


Our first game did not start the way we wanted going down 11-2. After we called a time out and re-organized we kept pace with a very strong University of Texas team who had former US National team player Brian Kirkland carrying the ball. Everyone dug deep but we could not claw back losing 51-38.

Our second game was against the host team. Steel Wheels where favoured to win the game and it showed for the first 5 minutes as we went up 6-0. Unfortunately fatigue set in and the host team tied things up by the end of the first quarter. The game went back and forth and traded a few turnovers. Towards the end of the games Edmonton’s experience took over and we won 44-40. 

Tomorrow we have two tough games against Denver and St. Louis

The team has made the trip down to the lone star state for the 7th Annual RISE Adaptive Sports wheelchair rugby tournament. Team from St .Louis, Denver, University of Texas, Irving and Boise have showed up ready to play. Our first game is tomorrow at 1:30pm against the University of Texas. I will update everyone at the end of each day so check back tomorrow!