The North American Floorball League returns this summer for Season 2 with even BIGGER stars and more teams competing for the glory of the Troy Cup.
An overall increase of 2 teams pushes the league from 4 different sides taking place last year to now 6 teams fighting for the championship.
Defending champions Florida Vikings will be strong favourites to retain their title having reinforced their team with some world class talent in the form of 3 Swedish Men’s World Champions in Niklas Ramirez, Kevin Haglund and Linus Malmstrom. More of the Vikings roster include the returning NAFL season 1 top scorer Josef “Pepa” Juha, and brothers Liam (USA Men’s team, plus part owner!) & Luke Williamsson (USA Men’s U19) who make a family feel to the team with father Daniel Williamsson (USA Men’s U19 Assistant Coach) on the coaching staff! The Williamsson family are at the core of the Florida Vikings team and are aiming to use to NAFL to help promote more of the youth setup of the Vikings organisation which has several youth teams already! Other notable names include U19 WFC Bronze medalist and SSL player Albin Hestal, Czech Superleague goalie Peter Chlad and young Swedish defender Emil Mattsson who broke through into AIK’s roster in the SSL last season with 18 games played.
Runners up from last year Fort Worth Jaguars have stuck to their ethos (and team colours!) by mainly recruiting Finnish players to supplement their group of homegrown talent. Based in Fort Worth, Texas the Jags will have several young Finnish players to call on during the season. Forwards Pepe Strommer & Setti Roimela are joined by defenders Onni Forss & Oskari Piisila who all play in some of the highest Junior divisions in Finland. Providing some homegrown talent are U19 USA team players from the recent World Championships, forward Ryan Folic, defenders Alex Radichel & Niko Grey plus goalkeeper Ethan VanPatten.
3rd place finishers last year Fresno Force from Fresno, California have also looked to bring in familiar faces from last year and have a certain Canadian feel to their squad. Thomas Courtemanche (WFC 2020), Justin Knight (Canada Men’s U19), Ben Kiddie (WFC 2020) and Taylor Walsh (WFC 2020 + 2022) join Canada Men’s captain and Floorball Canada President Matt Smith in bringing some maple flavour to California. Other standout players on Fresno include USA U19 talents Landon VanPatten and Maximus Blanco (who is also part of the senior USA squad) and a large group of players from the Swedish Allsvenskan including Adam Torkelsson who finished last season as the 2nd top scorer in the 2nd highest league in Sweden!
The first of 3 new teams entering this season are the Texas Tornados who will look to make a splash on their first year in the NAFL. Young USA players Case Connor, Keene Addington, Jonathan Moller and Rylan Rasmussen are supplemented by talented players from Ukraine, Canada, Sweden and the Czech Republic with one of the stars of the team being Hollviken defender Ted Nivestam who has played 7 seasons in the SSL in Sweden. A familiar face for those on social media will be Czech defender Adam Cilecek who is know by his moniker Bombardek_96. Adam is known for his videos helping to grow the sport and give informative and passionate tips and tricks to help all players of all ages improve their game on the court.
Of all 6 teams competing the Minnesota Growlers are the certainly the most northern of all the clubs in the NAFL. The “State of Hockey” as it’s known becomes the “State of Floorball” this summer as they enter the league for the first time. Like the Jaguars the team from Minnesota have a certain Finnish feel to their squad with several players joining the team from the country famous for its saunas. Minnesota has over 100,000 residents either descended from or with Finnish ancestry and a strong Nordic culture is prevalent in the state. Several players will be joining from Finland’s 3rd division and sides Pelicans and Dynamo Oulu, however their standout player has to be goalkeeper Pasi Jarvinen who played last season in net for LASB in the F-Liiga, Finland’s highest division. The Finnish core will join some local talent with Peter & Stephen Marsolais alongside USA U19 member Hugo Rouvinen.
Last but not least is the newest team on the NAFL, the Aviators from Ohio (or Aviators Floorball). The Aviators were the last team to announce their participation this season taking the place of the now defunct Utah Raptors who finished 4th last year. Based out of Ohio the team has a Swedish feel to it with several players in either the SSL or Allsvenskan with standout names such as Albin Nilsson, Isac Skog, Hannes Karlsson alongside some junior All Canadian Floorball players joining the ranks in Matt Alejandro and Samson Mcdonald. One signing sure to spark some interest from across the Pacific Ocean is Australian defender Eoin Broome who played for the Australian U19 team at the 2017 U19 WFC where they famously beat Germany 3-1. The Aviators may be new but will hope to cause some upsets and push all the other teams throughout the season.
NAFL season 2 has been condensed this summer to allow all international players the ability to stay throughout the entire season with their teams (and also no World Games break in the middle of the competition). Season 2 begins Friday July 14th in Austin, Texas before moving to Orlando, Florida and finishing at the NYTEX Sports Centre just outside Dallas, Texas for the season finale.
All matches will be livestreamed for FREE on the NAFL YouTube channel here:
Keep up to date with things NAFL Season 2 on their website or on their social media channels @nafloorball
