USA: The San Diego Floorball Club defeated the host Menlo Park team 6-1 to win the U.S. Championships!
The tournament, which took place Saturday and Sunday over Labor Day weekend in Menlo Park California, was sponsored by Floorball Gear and Unihoc in partnership with the United Stated Floorball Association.
The tournament consisted of six teams from all over California; L.A., San Diego, Fresno, Menlo Park, San Francisco, and San Jose.
The Menlo Park and San Francisco clubs were both undefeated after the first day setting up an exciting match Sunday morning. Menlo Park was able to take advantage of several minutes of power play and defeated San Francisco, 2-1 to go into the playoffs in the top spot.
In the bottom two spots after Round Robin play, San Jose and Fresno did not proceed to the playoffs.
While both clubs were led by players with international experience with Team USA (defender Zach Geiser for San Jose and tricky ball carrier Steve Wilburn for Fresno) each squad consisted of several players still learning to play floorball at a competitive level.
In the semi-finals, Menlo Park defeated the LA team and San Diego stunned San Francisco in a shootout. Though playing back-to-back, San Francisco team was then able to win 6-1 over LA to take third place and San Diego went on to win decisively in the final.
In addition to Geiser and Wilburn, the tournament featured several other players with American National Team experience: goalie Michael Adamek, forward Vince Faso, and USFbA President Calle Karlsson donned black San Francisco jerseys. From the LA squad, both Andrew Beyer and his wife Meredith Beyer have donned USA jerseys in the past, as has San Diego forward Eric Molin and Menlo Park defender David Nilsson.
The tournament's primary officials were Sean Edin of Fresno, CA and Jeff Morris of Austin, TX.
The weekend also featured a shootout competition sponsored by Floorball Gear. After three rounds, Klas Berghede of the San Francisco Floorball Club took the first place prize of Unihoc's RS 300 stick.
