A Tri-City soccer club will be holding a minute of silence at all of its games this weekend following the tragic death of a Port Coquitlam teenager and his family, who were aboard a downed flight that killed 63 Canadians leaving Tehran, Iran.
The announcement comes a day after revelations that father Ardalan Ebnoddin-Hamidi, his wife, Niloofar Razzaghi, and their 15-year-old son, Kamyar Ebnoddin-Hamidi were among 176 people killed on a passenger flight that crashed shortly after takeoff Tuesday from Iran's Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport.
Kamyar played on Coquitlam Metro Ford Soccer Club's (CMFSC) U16 boys' Div. 3 team, and his father was as an assistant coach with the team.
All of CMFSC's home games will hold the minute of silence to allow “for a period of silent contemplation, reflection, and prayer, and is a gesture of respect for the loss of the family,” according to a letter from the club sent to parents.
Kamyar was a grade 10 French Immersion student at Riverside secondary school in PoCo. Thursday, students at the school are wearing red to memorialize their friend and classmate because it was Kamyar’s favourite colour.
Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said 138 people were ultimately bound for Canada on the doomed flight. In Metro Vancouver, several media outlets have confirmed more than a dozen residents were aboard the aircraft when it went down.
By Thursday morning, several American outlets reported the Boeing 737-800 was struck shortly after takeoff by an Iranian missile system. The allegations, first reported by Newsweek and characterized as accidental, were based on interviews with a senior U.S. intelligence official, a Pentagon official and an Iraqi intelligence official.
The crash came after a U.S. bombing targeting an Iranian general and retaliation from Iran directed at a base hosting American soldiers in Iraq.
