Brian's latest blog talks about all the contributions from the floorball community that have come together to create the NAFL.
I received an email this week from a prospective player in Europe who told me “…you seem to have a good start to form a great organization.” I thought, wow, why would he think that?
He talked about the blogs I’ve posted, the overall look of the site, and the information on it. He appreciated the little things that we’ve done in the background, around COVID, around our real jobs, and around the community. As I thought about this statement over the last couple of days, I thought about all the efforts going into the NAFL…and realized that it is indeed the little things.
It’s Commissioner Ryan Connor having the balls to get this thing started out of his own pocket.
It’s my wife and co-owner Leigh telling me that we should “go for it”.
It’s Darryl Gross and the team at Floorball Planet (www.floorballplanet.com) who stepped up and took on the title sponsorship of the league in a devastatingly low economy.
It’s the excitement of Jesse Mattson posting nearly everyday, like he’s trying to single-handedly drive social awareness on the web.
It’s Chandler Holguin ponying up to create a floorball franchise in a great sports city, that to this point has had no visible floorball presence in the country.
It’s Peter Gustafsson taking the initiative to set up a formal, high-end, officials’ network for the league.
It’s Theo Blanco, who I only met once in March in Dallas, who stepped in and provided valuable leadership for foreign players, foreign coaches, and European enthusiasm…and then bought a franchise on top of it.
It’s my brother Jeff Radichel (www.thenstep.com) and his team who jumped in with both feet to design a killer brand, website, and store for me…and hanging in there when brotherly frustration with each other overwhelms us both!
It’s my friend Rick Nelson (www.wrekathletics.com) who designed our first t-shirt and shipped it to us in Texas at a price that I couldn’t beat locally.
It’s my Purvis printer Mike Curtis (www.curtisbp.com) who has spent many a happy hour brainstorming floorball (and sponsoring floorball in North Texas) who is probably as excited as I am…and the produced the backdrop that will be featured heavily over the next few weeks as well as the masks for our store.
It’s my first two players who are taking as much a chance on us and our dream as I am on theirs…more to come on this in the next week! Not to mention, it’s the dozens of players that have signed up and are eagerly awaiting us to get with the program and start signing more players.
It’s you, the fans, who might be old floorball hands from Europe, or slightly-less-old floorball hands from this side of the pond, or someone who is just hearing about “this floorball thing” for the first time. Every dollar you spend today, tomorrow, or in the future goes directly to building this league for you and our players. Every social post you share (right, Jesse?)or every link you click continues to build the buzz we need to make our league great.
So, it really IS the little things. It’s the collection of people that all pitch in to do their part and help make a collective dream – a professional, high-end, American floorball league – come true. Hopefully, we can live up to the trust they’ve all placed in us and in each other. Thankyou to all of you – this ride is wild and crazy, and I wouldn’t want to take it with anyone else.
