Club History

Philadelphia Stormers – since 2004! In was in October that year, when Magnus Larsson, Nigel Piggott and Daniel Fors met over the internet to create what they were missing the most: a floorball team in the Philadelphia area. Magnus and Daniel both have their origins in Sweden, the home of floorball – or, how they call it, «innebandy» – and also Nigel's family goes back to Sweden. The later used to play this fascinating game in Fresno, but it was only when he moved to the East coast when Nigel discovered that floorball does not exist in the Philadelphia area at all. Together with Magnus who he knew from California, he was looking for more people willing to play. Daniel found their Yahoo group and together they were able to find a suitable location in Manayunk and to get enough people together for a first pick-up game.

Rising Interest, Rising Expectations

While it was hard in the beginning to get at least six players together every now and then, one training a week soon was not enough anymore. By getting more and more practise through four hours training a week, the team felt ready for the next big step: the participation in a tournament. Six brave men and two wildcard players from other teams formed the first public appearance of the Philadelphia Stormers in Raleigh, NC at the East Coast Tournament in September 2005. It was a great experience playing other teams from all over North America. The resulting 8th place out of 10 was definitively something to build upon. One of the lessons learned was that in order to be competitive, the Stormers had to find a bigger, tournament size rink, because the game play was remarkably different to the one the players where used to back home in Manayunk. That is how Philadelphia started practising on the indoor hockey rink at Gold's Gym, King of Prussia.

The Run for Glory

You can learn the most by playing other, more experienced teams and the Stormers were well aware of this fact and therefore decided to play their first international tournament in Toronto over Easter Week-end 2006. Knowing that this was only the second tournament for the team, Philadelphia decided to play in the intermediate division. This payed off and the Stormers drove home unbeaten with their first tournament win in the club history. Daniel Fors (on the photo's left side) was honored as the best center, Matt Moyer (to the right) as the best goal tender.

Backed up by this tremendous success, the club was able to attract even more players in the Philadelphia area which allowed for regular training sessions on the big field. With the growth of the club, more structure became necessary and also in 2006 a board was elected with its first president John Dicriscio.

The latest development was the participation in this year's East Coast Tournament. While the progress was undeniable, the team was not yet able to bring home the tight games and acceptable sixth. For sure a bright future is awaiting this awesome floorball team!