winners!, originally uploaded by BC Floorball Federation.
The 2nd annual BCFF Floorball Challenge held on May 24th brought together close to 60 players. Whereas most of the day was for our “older” players, we also invited back all of the kids from the youth tournament to take part in a special mini series. For many, the best part of this tournament was seeing the love of floorball shown in the kids enthusiasm, all the fun they had and all the great plays they pulled off at such a young age.
The tournament brought out an extra effort from many of our regular players. The matches had a lot of electricity and many battles within. Teams were extremely even with most games ending in a simple one goal difference. Top spot could have gone to anyone. Strong goaltending all over was one of the big stories of the day as the games were much lower scoring than anticipated. Greg Beaudin was one of the few that was able to break though with some consistency and ended up as top scorer of the day with 9 points.
The other story that came out of the tournament was the impressive showing by our younger players, of whom some are still only 12 and 13 years old. Because of their strong play over the year, we wanted them to be challenged to a higher level and be part of the BCFF tournament. It was an immensely difficult task for them to walk on to the court and play against such bigger, faster, players, but after a few shifts, these youngsters quickly settled in to their own game and showed what excellent skill, as well as determination, they have. Not only did they fit in, they all played an important role on their respective teams and had a long list of hard earned compliments from their teammates at the end of the day. Jamie Turner, 12, just 12 years old (I have to repeat it as I don’t believe it), pulled off a hat trick on many a nice play with team captain Christian Kortmann, leading them to victory in the bronze medal final. Jamie had 4 goals and 2 assists on the day giving him third spot on the points leader board! We were extremely proud of all of the younger guys play!
In the gold medal match, Stefan Siegenthaler’s team was up against Greg Beaudin’s. Again, goaltending was excellent at both ends, stopping many nice shoots and end to end rushes. Stefan’s team, of mostly Swiss players, had a tireless effort which was key in holding off the offensive attacks by Greg and the rest of his roster. It was neck and neck right down to the final buzzer, but Stefan’s team came out on top, 2-1.
MVP went to Stefan. It was a treat to watch the 21 year old Langnau Tiger going through two or three players at a time, unloading some wicked shots, if you could see them, that absolutely no-one could stop. Congrats to this years gold medal winners.
Gold Medal Winners:
Stefan Siegenthaler
Scott Douglas
Christian Abaecherli
Har the Journalist
Matthias Nanz
Tobias
Nicholas Durrans
James McLachlan
The Breakaway contest was won by Michael Lindgren’s Team.
Thanks to all of the volunteers who helped out on the day. Thanks to Vincent Chan for taking control of scorekeeping. Thanks to Cafe Artigiano for their kind donation and keeping my coffee addiction in tack. Easily the best coffee house in Vancouver! Also, thanks to Taylors Crossing who took great care of us at the after party.
We had so much fun, we are hoping to have a Summer Tournament in August with some kind of Island/Beach/Deck (or all three) theme on the side. Stayed tuned!
TOP DEFENSE - Sarah Mitchell. Sarah led the defense for the Finland team, who were easily the hardest team to score against. Well played Sarah!
