Kan Jam® or Discflect?

Discflect

Kan Jam® is a brand of a flying disc game which consists of two goals and a disc. While most people play this game casually, there is a community of competitive players who participate in annual tournaments.

As more countries gain interest in the game as a sport, we realize that we have to separate the sport from the brand.

A sport cannot be named after a trademarked name or brand, or the trademark risks becoming genericized. Simply put, when a term goes from describing a single product under a particular brand name, to describing an entire product category, it has been genericized. Think aspirin, escalator, and thermos. Did you know those all used to be brand names? To future-proof our sport, we put a plan in motion to come up with a generic sport name.

This was a daunting task to come up with a name that accurately depicts the sport. So we put together a committee consisting of veteran players who know the game well.

The most unique aspect of our game, compared to other flying disc sports, is the ability to deflect the disc as opposed to only throwing and/or catching. Deflecting is a very important skill to master. As a clever play on words, they came up with the term ‘discflect’ that combines disc and deflect.

Henceforth, the sport shall be known as DISCFLECT.

Moving forward, all events, tournaments, leagues, and clubs will use the name discflect instead of the trademarked name Kan Jam®.

PDFA

In conjunction with creating a generic name for the sport, a governing body has also been formed. This governing body is known as the Professional Discflect Association, or PDFA.

Moving forward, PDFA will oversee all competitive aspects of discflect including but not limited to: standards of play, maintaining the rules for tournament play, tools for tournament directors, scoring procedures, referee standards, and so much more.

All competitive tournaments will be hosted by a tournament director which can be a single person or a group of people who have formed a local club. PDFA will guide and oversee these tournament directors, helping with things like tournament format, coordination tools, and stat tracking. Items like date and venue selection, day-of coordination including set up, giveaways, and sponsorships will be the responsibility of the tournament director.

History 101

While a lot of people play the game casually in their backyards or at sporting events, there is a rich history of the competitive sport.
Since the beginning, tournaments have existed. They were smaller and a bit more laid back, but a champion was always crowned.
In the early 1990’s, the game was played with aluminum garbage cans.
Since 1999, there has been an annual open World Championship as well as several other tournaments, in multiple countries, using the plastic goals we are all familiar with today.
Teams from all over Canada and several European countries have played in this annual tournament in the United States, making it a true “World Championship”.
Now we are moving to a new era of discflect. While game play will still be relatively the same, we are introducing new tournament formats and eventually tracking stats. Keep checking back for all of our exciting new updates!