How One Saturday at The Annex Delivered a Full Season’s Worth of Drama
On Saturday at The Annex, Richmond floorball tried something new.
A one-day tournament.
A four-team draft.
Full IFF-style 3v3 rules.
Ten games compressed into a single stretch of afternoon hockey.
The result wasn’t just a champion — it was a day where the sport moved faster, opened up wider, and showed how much can happen when players who aren’t normally teammates are asked to make it work immediately.
This wasn’t SSL.
This wasn’t Barton.
This wasn’t the usual rhythm of a season.
This was Richmond floorball stripped down and sped up — a high-tempo experiment that turned into one of the most competitive days the club has seen.
What follows is the official RFC Media Hub account of everything that happened.
🟩 Draft Morning: Four Captains, Four Philosophies
Every captain entered with a different plan, and none of them hid it.
Conor
Direct. Competitive. Honest to a fault.
“I’m trying to draft the players that I hate facing in regular season so they can score on the other guys for a change. Get a couple of the Eskimo players to snipe Dom for me.”
He added:
“It’s been so much fun playing with all the different players in the league the past 2 years that I’ve been playing goalie… We have really good goaltending in the league and I’m always pushing myself to be the best in the league.”
Then, with signature timing:
“If you’re not tripping Jacob what’s the point in playing.”
Dom
Minimalism as strategy.
“Just trying to draft a team that knows how to score goals and how to prevent the other team from scoring goals.”
Asked if he wanted to add anything?
“Just put the ball in the net.”
His team — the Goal Gobblers — would end up doing exactly that.
Alex
Identity first.
His group carried the dual motto:
“Defense wins championships”
and
“Win or lose, make it epic.”
It fit them perfectly.
Tony
He drafted for scoring weapons and pressure — the kind of roster that could drop goals in bunches and put opponents on edge early.
With the draft complete, the day moved into the first phase:
three round robin games per team — fast, tight, and unforgiving.
Round Robin — Where Each Team Found Its Identity
Dom’s Team (3–0): Efficient, structured, and dangerous
Beat Conor 10–1
Beat Alex 2–1
Beat Tony 10–7
This was the most complete round robin performance of the day.
Matt Dillard scored in every game — 4 goals in Game 2, 2 more in Game 4, and an eruption of scoring in Game 6.
Mathieu operated as the primary distributor and finisher, consistently controlling pace.
Mitchell played the stabilizing role in all three games.
Max added timely scoring throughout.
They entered the playoffs undefeated and unshaken.
Conor’s Team (1–1–1): Built around top-end scoring
They didn’t dominate from the start, but the path was obvious.
Tied Tony 2–2
Lost to Dom 1–10
Beat Alex 5–2
Game 5 was the turning point.
Nick scored a full hat trick.
Steve added another.
Jacob opened the scoring.
It was clear:
When this team found open space, they were as dangerous as any group in the building.
Tony’s Team (1–1–1): Streaky, explosive, unpredictable
Beat Alex 5–2
Tied Conor 2–2
Lost to Dom 7–10
Game 1 showed their ceiling:
Marek scored three.
Katie opened the scoring.
Karl finished a late chance.
Jimmy contributed everywhere — scoring, assisting, forechecking.
Game 6 showed their volatility — seven goals scored, but ten allowed.
Alex’s Team (0–3): Competitive in every game
Don’t let the record fool anyone.
The scores were close, largely because of Alex’s workload:
18 saves vs Tony
25 saves vs Dom
22 saves vs Conor
That’s 65 saves in the round robin alone, on the way to a tournament-best 91.
Scoring came from everywhere:
Victor (twice in Game 1)
Alyssa (Game 4)
Tommy and Dan (Game 5)
Jacob and Will (Bronze Game later)
They played disciplined, tight games — just without the finishing volume of the other rosters.
Semifinals — Where the Day Tightened
Dom vs Alex — 5–1 Dom
Jacob opened the scoring for Alex’s team early, but Dom’s team took over from there.
Dillard scored four times, and Steve — newly added to the roster — supplied the other. Their attack overwhelmed Alex’s defenders late, and Dom advanced to the final.
Conor vs Tony — 6–3 Conor
This was the Nick Game.
Four goals
One assist
Total control in transition
Tom Hogan added two more for Conor’s team, and despite strong efforts by Marek, Jimmy, and Tommy J, Tony’s team couldn’t keep pace.
That set up a championship everyone wanted:
Dom vs Conor.
Two captains with opposite draft philosophies.
Two teams peaking at the same time.
The Championship — The Wildest Game of the Day
Dom’s team struck first with goals from Dillard and Max, establishing the opening tone.
Conor’s team answered with an explosive natural hat trick from Nick — three straight finishes that flipped the scoreboard and ignited the bench.
The building felt tense.
The players were locked in.
And then the final four minutes detonated.
2:59 — Dillard ties it (4–4)
After heavy pressure and repeated chances, Dillard broke through with the equalizer.
1:48 — Kinsey from midcourt (5–4 Conor)
Kinsey stepped into a long-range rip from the midfield stripe — one of the cleanest shots of the entire tournament — restoring the lead.
0:54 — Steve ties it again (5–5)
Max won a contested ball along the right wall and slid it to Steve, who fired a sharp shot from the right side, beating the goalie to bring the game level.
Three goals in just over two minutes.
No room to breathe.
Regulation ended 5–5.
A championship shootout was the only way to settle it.
The Shootout — Three Rounds, Six Shooters, One Goal
Round 1
Tom (Conor): off the post.
Dillard (Dom): off the post — nearly identical.
Round 2
Nick (Conor): another post, low and heavy.
Max (Dom): stopped cleanly by Conor.
Round 3
Alex (Conor): denied by Dom’s goalie.
Steve (Dom): waited, shifted right, and beat Conor’s goalie for the championship.
One goal.
That’s all it took.
Dom’s team took the tournament.
Epilogue — What Saturday at The Annex Actually Showed
The Thanksgiving Shootout wasn’t a season.
It wasn’t a league night.
It wasn’t months of systems, chemistry, and lineup adjustments.
It was one day —
ten games,
a new format,
four captains,
dozens of players learning the speed of 3v3,
and a building full of Richmond floorball watching it unfold.
The pace was fast.
The scoring was wild.
The games were close.
The goalies were tested nonstop.
And the final — with its late swings and post-heavy shootout — delivered the perfect ending for a first-time event.
The Annex didn’t just host a tournament.
It hosted one of the clearest snapshots of what Richmond floorball has become:
Competitive.
Unpredictable.
Skilled.
And absolutely worth watching.
This feature was drafted with assistance from RFC Media Hub AI tools and finalized by human oversight from RFC Executive Leadership to ensure accuracy and integrity.
