History made in Helsingborg!

The US Men's U19 team have now played their first World Floorball Championship game as they faced Hungary. This in itself is an immense victory for USA Floorball and floorball as a whole. The game itself was a real challenge for Team USA. After a tough first period Team USA would eventually lose by 3-12.

This afternoon Team USA faced Hungary in their first game of the WFC. The Hungarian team came out strong and had a 0-6 lead after the first period. The period saw the US team welcomed to the World Floorball Championships with a bang. The only US name on the stat sheet from the period was Alexander Gross who took the opportunity to take the first two minute penalty for the team.

In the second Team USA picked up their game and got more physical but the Hungarians won the second as well, by 0-3 giving them a 0-9 lead going into the third.

Al the while the US team was cheered on by their numerous supporters on the stands.

A lesser team might have stopped playing at this point but Team USA never give up and battled on.  On the powerplay Felix Ström found Adrian Hiram who scored the first goal ever for Team USA at the Men's U19 World Championships after less than two minutes of the third.  The Hungarians didn't loosen the pressure though and scored shortly thereafter. The second US goal came through Isak Angerstig who pressured the Hungarian defense until they coughed up the ball. Alone with the goaltender he scored, making it 2-10 after about half the third period.

The Hungarians would score twice over but Team USA would round of the scoring. Joshua Verschleiser got a chance on a penalty shot but was unable to score. But Adrian Hiram would score his second on the game after 18:10 of the third, the last goal of the game. This made the final score 3-12. The score in the third being 3-3.

After the game Adrian Hiram talked to the WFC website.
- We did a pretty good job for a first world championship game. We started off a bit shaky, then we got better and better as the game went.  I think our power play went really good in this game

Team Captain Alexander Miller was chosen as Team USA's MVP of the game.

A great first step for a U19 Men's team USA that just keeps growing the longer they play together.

Statistics

Up next is a game against Denmark Thursday the 30^th of April. It starts at 18:15 CET and can be seen live here.

Photos Adam Troy