Suomalaistahtien’s Thorengruppen is the Swedish women’s floorball champion again. In men, Storvreta, piloted by Mika Kohonen, won their new championship, but now Gabriel Kohonen also celebrated on the field.
Mika Halonen,
Bettina Törnvall,
Sakari Lund
The Finnish twins, attacking stars Veera and Oona Kaupin and defender My Kippilän represented by Team Thorengruppen is celebrating the Swedish floorball championship for the fourth time in a row. The Umeå club beat Pixbo in the final with 6–3 goals. No Finns play at Pixbo.
– Great feelings. We worked hard all season for this big dream and managed to win again. It’s a crazy feeling, rejoiced Veera Kauppi, who Urheilu reached by phone from the party fun.
The same teams met in the final for the fourth time in a row. In the previous three finals, Thorengruppen had only beaten Pixbo by a goal difference.
Now the final match was played at Stockholm’s Friends Arena. Almost 16,000 spectators watched the floorball final in Areena, which serves as the home stadium of the Swedish national football team and AIK. It was a new audience record for women’s floorball.
– Absolutely insane. Of course, I’ve always dreamed of big games. Maybe you don’t have time to feel that atmosphere on the field, but you can certainly see that now we are in the big lights, Veera Kauppi beamed.
Thorengruppen took a 2–0 lead at the end of the opening set when Veera Kauppi headed the goal in front Maja Viströmin input to the guests’ network. However, Pixbo narrowed the match to 1–2 in the second set.
The Umeå club took a 4–1 lead at the beginning of the final set. Oona Kauppi scored her team’s fourth goal.
Desperate Pixbo decided to take out his goalkeeper in good time and with that he once again got in front of the goal. However, the situation backfired at the end of the set, when Cajsa Alm scored Thorengruppen’s last two goals on empty nets. Veera Kauppi passed Almi’s 5–3 hit.
The Kaup sisters have been part of Thorengruppen’s ranks since the 2020–21 season. Veera Kauppi, 26, was voted the world’s best female player for the fourth time in her career in January.
The Kaup sisters have therefore celebrated the championship in each of their seasons in the Thorengruppen. It was the third championship for Kippila.
– Well… It seems to have gone well now, but it’s a lot of fun from everyone in this gang. We want to develop and are rarely satisfied. I believe that is a recipe for success, Veera Kauppi smiled.
Kauppi laughed at the question about party plans. At the time of the interview, my head was still on wheels.
– We have a dinner of the Swedish League and the Floorball Association in the evening, until then it’s free play, Kauppi quipped.
– We just spent an hour writing numbers in the fan area. Time has passed quickly. Now I have a piece of pizza in my hand. Isn’t this slowly getting into the mood of the party?
In Sweden, a Finnish celebration was also seen in the super final of the men’s floorball league. A legend of the sport Mika Kohonen coached by Storvreta defeated Pixbo 8–5 in the final and managed to win his second consecutive championship.
Last spring, Kohonen won the fifth Swedish championship of his career, but it was his first as a coach.
This season, however, there were two Kohos in the team, because Mika is Kohonen’s son Gabriel Kohonen20, has become one of Storvreta’s top guns.
Gabriel, representing his native Sweden at the national team level, scored one assist in the final.
The men’s final was watched by 18,370 spectators, which is a new world record in floorball. says Aftonbladet. The previous record was broken by about a hundred.
– This is magical, described the number one hero of the final, who hit the hat trick Otto Weidman.