Floorball | Veera and Oona Kaup’s Thorengruppen won the Champions Cup

Lempäälä

Turku The women’s indoor bandy team of the ball club experienced its opening defeat of the season on Sunday, and that too came against the Swedes in the Champions Cup of the club teams. The narrow top is the reason why you don’t see, for example, the brightest world stars in the F-League.

The star twins of the Finnish women’s national floorball team Veera and Oona Kauppi went to Sweden in 2018 because the sport is more professional there. A little over four years later, their current club Thorengruppen IBK continued the 15-year championship streak of Swedish women’s teams in the club team tournament Champions Cup, although Turku Palloseura remained in the final for 50 minutes.

TPS pressed in the final set, but Thorengruppen managed to score twice and eventually won with 5–2 goals.

“This TPS would be the top team in the Swedish league as well. They have two really hard chains and a third that fights until the end”, praised Veera Kauppi, who collected 2+1 performances in Sunday’s final match.

Although the tip is sharp in Finland, it is unfortunately narrow. Veera Kaup, voted the best in the world three times, thinks the direction is right, but there is still a long way to go to the western neighbor. That’s why Kauppe is hardly seen in his best years in the domestic league.

“I don’t want to speak for Oona, but I want to play in the toughest league in the world, which is currently in Sweden,” said Veera Kauppi.

Although Thorengruppen was one step ahead on Sunday, the reigning Finnish champion TPS has captured their position as the country’s best team this season. The win and match columns show 15, which means that miracles must happen in the last six rounds so that the team from Turku does not enter the playoffs as the regular season winner.

The top of the points market of the domestic first division F-League is teeming with TPS players, but 33 goals Milla Nordlund is above the rest. In Lempäälä, the 25-year-old attacker enjoyed when the game was fast and the resistance was the best possible.

“We talked a lot with the team about how tough the gang is up against. After all, this was a place on the screen for us, and it gave us an extra boost,” said Nordlund, who scored the opening goal of the match.

The head coach Aki Vilander regretted the first loss of the season, but said that the process is still in progress.

“Last season, we were just supposed to learn how to win, and then we won the Finnish championship. That and the Champions Cup came a little early,” Vilander revealed.

Last the spring championship gold was the first in the club’s history. Both Nordlund and Vilander say that high-quality training is the reason why TPS has risen to challenge the best in the world.

“The players get fired up when they compete in training. We’re trying to get the feeling that playing should evoke, that is, that someone loses and someone wins,” Vilander said.

“We’ve got a good sporting culture where the individual has goals,” Nordlund formulated.

The Champions Cup, founded in 1993, was played for the last time in January 2020. After that, the cup had to be canceled by the corona in two consecutive years.

Sometimes the tournament has gone by a different name and there have been a different number of participants, but nowadays only the champions of the four best floorball countries – Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland – are invited.