It must be an honour to become a part of floorball history. Even if it means missing the EuroFloorball Cup final round with the slightest margin possible.
There it is, our fate in a bowl
Drawing the lot.
While IFF officials Michael Lachenmaier and Kaarina Salomaa made the preparations, Erä and Storvreta players went through the traditional after-game handshakes. The bowl with two balls and pieces of paper got its share of glimpses as the players passed by.
The chairman of the jury moved the balls around a bit, grabbed one and took out the roll of paper to be displayed. Storvreta IBK, it said, and that was it.
”I had no idea when they were going to go through it”, Erä head coach Petteri Bergman said afterwards. ”Only when the Storvreta players started celebrating, I realized it had been decided”. The same most likely applied to the audience.
”We came here to proceed to the final tournament but not like this”, Storvreta’s Mika Kohonen said, the gentleman that he always is. ”They should just have put the ball in the middle and let us players decide it”.
No gestures of bitterness or frustration by the home team, though. ”We knew the rules beforehand and that’s how it went this time”, winger Jaakko Rissanen said, with a shrug. After the press conference, Erä players and coaches did not linger complaining about the rules. The talk was about how they should have taken advantage of their scoring opportunities that were plenty.
Sami Lehtinen and Joel Kanebjörk have done their part
After losing last year’s EFC final in overtime and the Finnish league’s fifth final on penalties and now this, Erä knows all about small margins. But they also know that this was the only one decided by pure luck. ”I hope they are right when they say that you first have to lose enough to then be ready to win”, Petteri Bergman said.
Erä was not able to make it through the qualification for the third time in a row but there were a lot of good things to be happy about in their game. A clear win against Tigers Langnau, a tie against the Swedish champions in a game that was there to be won. Even when Mika Kohonen took the last word claiming that he and the team can do a lot better than this. Still, Erä gave their home crowd solid goaltending, fast plays and a strong mental presence. With defender Jussi Kosola and winger Jani Helenius now gaining experience in Switzerland, Mika Moilanen and Juho Kantola as the new kids in town raised expectations with their goals and assists.
The Finnish league season opener at home against Finnish and European Champions SSV is now two and a half weeks away.
MOSAN OMAT is
a webzine covering Tapanilan Erä Floorball — by Tapanilan Erä Floorball.
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