Yes, Sami Salo plays Floorball, so does Teemu Selanne, Alex Edler, The Sedins, etc. etc. Cat’s out of the bag, European NHL players bring slick skills to North America, and it has a lot to do with Floorball.
Hockey Canada Skills Academies coast-to-coast play Floorball. The best youngest hockey players in Canada play Floorball and the best European NHL players play Floorball. This is not your Father’s brand of Floor Hockey, at all. Come try for yourself…
The Hockey Shop in Surrey is, undoubtedly, one of the best “pure” Hockey stores in the World. Their selection, and service is world class. They have been researching Floorball for a couple of years now, and the verdict is in- Floorball Rocks! Every Hockey player, young and old, female or male, should be packing a Floorball stick. You will soon see the difference in your stickhandling, on-ice, guaranteed.
Next Week in West Vancouver is the start of Floorball Summer Camps. BC Floorball partner Modern Hockey has assembled an ALL-STAR team of instructors that includes 4 Team Canada Players from the North Shore: As of last week, the Camps were sold out. We have since opened up more spots to accommodate the interest.
Stephanie Allam- Team Canada Womens
Robbie Wilkinson- Team Canada u19
Lyndon Stanwood- Team Canada u19
Blair Zimmerman- Team Canada Men’s
In addition to expert instruction, the Modern Hockey Starcamp 2010 will feature Salming Floorball’s Salming Academy skills training system.
The Report on Business section of the Globe and Mail just recently featured our partner Juha Mikkola, owner of FloorballPro in their national business edition.
The exciting part of this story is that one gets the sense that Floorball is going to get very, very big in Canada. In fact, Floorball has the greatest potential of all forms off off-ice hockey for the following reasons:
it’s ideal for school sports(imagine an actual team sport, with engineered sticks that evolve the recreational game of floor hockey, into more of a competitive team game like school basketball and volleyball)
it’s the most affordable and safest brand of indoor hockey
it’s a hyper-fast growing Global sport with Olympic aspirations, World Championships, Pro Leagues, and a huge network of competitive and fun tournaments in North America, Europe and beyond..
It develops some amazing skills amongst Canada’s up and coming hockey elite and is a major component of Hockey Canada Skills Academies.
The sport of Floorball is branded up like no other form of hockey…it combines technologically advanced equipment, a freestyle element that is often found in sports like snowboarding, surfing, motocross and skateboarding…
If you have not tried Floorball yet, you should come out and give it a try, it’s great for everyone: all ages, skill levels and can be played almost anywhere.
the stick technology
the shoes, lifestyle and accessories
The culture, street style, fashion, music and art.
At PlayOn sponsors area in Burnaby last weekend, BCFF had a shooting station and public information booth. Up for grabs was a signed Willi Mitchell Canucks Jersey. Most points after 5 shots with a Floorball stick and ball, on the net would be declared the winner. Congratulations to Chad Anderson of West Vancouver, who sniped his way to 275 points.
As you can see in the picture below with Ian Hanomansing, our BCFF rink boards were put to good use in the celebrity game and showcase rinks.
This past weekend, Greg Beaudin-President of BC Floorball traveled to the beautiful Okanagan region to check in on past Floorball projects and develop some new ones.
First Up, it was a boardroom meeting with Blake Wesley, Kevin Goodwin, and Blair Noel of the prestigious Okanagan Hockey Schools. I was able to learn about the new 90 million dollar facility and their top notch programs that started in 1963. The School breeds NHLers and their enthusiasm for skills development was clearly a core component of their teaching philosophy. Floorball fits right in, with this line of thinking, and we are hatching an implementation plan for Floorball that will bring this fun cross-training system to some of the best young hockey players in the World.
Next meeting took place in Kelowna at the Capital News Center. Local Hockey Academies director Dan Ruggiero and Teacher/Instructor Kurt Corman sat down with us to talk about the past two years of their Floorball rollout, their challenges and their triumphs. We were also able to discuss the internal workings of school sports in Kelowna and how to effectively balance the demand to play, from the students, with the lack of available gym times, from the schools.
The Hockey Academy students had adopted the game of Floorball as expected, meaning that they all loved it and the enjoyed playing with the performance sticks and benefited from its cross training elements. The issue at hand, which is the same with all of Hockey Academies across the Province, is lack of available gym time.Which leads us to our next meeting….
Located in beautiful downtown Kelowna. The Kelowna Sunplex is a privately run multipurpose indoor sports facility catering to a variety of team sports but mainly focused on Ball Hockey…Last year we were able to sit down with owner/operator Bryan Ducharme to discuss Floorball, as a sport,in their pre-construction phase and we are happy to report that they have taken the Floorball field of play considerations to heart, and the finished product is ideal for Floorball. The first games to ever take place in the Sunplex, were part of the PlayOn Kelowna event on the weekend. The Flooring tiles were the best I’ve ever seen for Floorball. I really think this facility will thrive in Kelowna, and stakeholders such as Hockey Canada Skills Academies and Schools, as well as Minor Hockey Teams can rely on the Sunplex to provide the much needed “gym time” that everyone craves.
We were also able to have a quick meeting with Todd Johnson and Dave Cameron, Instructors at the Pursuit of Excellence(POE) hockey programs. POE is a world class developer of Hockey player, and we look forward to working with them to bring Floorball to their programs too.
Finally, the largest Street Hockey Festival in Canada was in full effect this past weekend and I was able to play with some old friends, the Geri Hat Tricks. I was able to use a Floorball stick, like last years event in Vancouver. It was a great time, we won all of our games and won our division…The festival like atmosphere in Kelowna was spectactular. Our friends Carlo Diano and Jon Margolis do an amazing job setting these events up and managing everything that goes along with them. Well done Boys!
One of the highlights of the event, was watching the hundreds of young hockey players pick up a Floorball stick at our Sunplex shooting station; stickhandle, shoot, ask questions and clearly enjoy the dynamics of the stick and ball. Registration for Floorball was hopping!
It’s that time of year again, the time where BC Floorballers chip in and help recruit teams, referees and volunteers for the Massive Street Hockey Festival that hits our streets on May 15-16 in Kelowna and June 5-6 in Burnaby.
In last years Vancouver event, our BC Floorball Boards were used in the showcase rink where the Finals and Celebrity game were held. The Floorball rink boards add another dimension to the games and they will be in use again this year.
BC Floorball will enter a Team in the event, and provide an assortment of experiences to promote Floorball like; a Zorro Demonstration, Stick Demos, and Promotional Videos.
Please Contact Greg Beaudin to get the details on how to get involved!
By ROB FAULKNER, HWDSB Staff repostHWDSB media desk
Saltfleet’s gym yesterday hosted school- and national-calibre games of floorball, a fast-growing sport that promises to improve skills of students in the HWDSB Hockey Canada Skills Academies as well as student experience as an inter-board sport.By ROB FAULKNER, HWDSB Staff
Billy Green students Taylor Mullen and Michael Ciavarella admit the game is fast, the ball-handling tricky and the learning curve steep in the little-known sport of floorball.
“It’s a lot like hockey,” Ciavarella said inside Saltfleet secondary’s gym yesterday, where Highview won the HWDSB elementary championship in a sport that bills itself as “the world’s most popular indoor hockey.”
Yesterday, Saltfleet’s gym was transformed, with packed bleaches and knee-level sideboards, for this fast-growing sport, one that promises to improve skills of students in HWDSB Hockey Canada Skills Academies, and add to student experience as it flourishes as an inter-board sport.
Floorball is a low-cost type of indoor hockey easy to confuse with floor or ball hockey. But the sticks are extremely light; the ball is like a whiffle ball; and the rink, usually 40 by 20 metres, fits well in community centres and school gyms.
“In Europe, floorball was designed to improve your on-ice skills, off-ice. Obviously it’s more economical to improve your skills off the ice and it’s great for conditioning as well,” explained Rob Blunsdon, special assignment teacher for Programs of Choice, which include the Hockey Canada Skills Academies at Sherwood, Churchill, Ancaster and Waterdown.
“We’ve been supportive of this, and four of our students have been on the national team: two current students and two former students,” he explained. Current Sherwood students on Team Canada include forwards Joel Inouye and Andrew Radjenovic.
After the Highview win, national teams began warming up for game one of a Canada-U.S. series that will determine who goes to the worlds in Finland in December. The game, born in Scandinavia, is tough to win in Europe, said Floorball Canada vice-president Paul Charbonneau. Finland is the team to beat. “We would struggle to keep them under 10 points,” he admits.
But Hamilton is becoming a hub for the sport that draws crowds of 20,000 in Europe. This year’s tournament saw 32 HWDSB elementary teams, up from 20 last year. The finals saw broad representation of schools from across the city, with east Hamilton’s Adelaide Hoodless, the east Mountain’s Highview, Stoney Creek’s Billy Green and Ancaster Senior competing.
“Floorball will be worked into our Hockey Skills Academies because, while they are on the ice twice a week, the stick-handling of floorball has been proven to improve their skills on-ice,” Blunsdon said. “It’s a safe sport, it builds sportsmanship and kids who may not embrace other sports easily get the hang of it.”
In addition, Charbonneau said Floorball Ontario is working with Durham educators to develop a curriculum package to help teachers lead a two-week floorball unit. He said floorball is being played in 150 Ontario schools, and three Toronto youth leagues.
Tomorrow, Feb. 6, Saltfleet will host a morning skills clinic with HWDSB students, before game two of the Canada-U.S. series.
Hockey academy teacher Anthony Herrington brought floorball to Sherwood after discussing training with Sweden’s Bjorn Kinding, who was heavily involved in floorball. Kinding created a skills manual and Herrington order the proper sticks for his class.
Most Monday evenings, Vancouver’s local Floorball community gathers in downtown Yaletown’s Roundhouse Community Centre. Mondays have always been a nice mix of new and veteran Floorballers. We have also been privileged that visiting European students have commonly found their way to the Roundhouse to participate. The attendance at Yaletown’s Roundhouse has always been steady, but since the New Year, we have really noticed a boost in numbers. Monday night Floorball has always had a steady influx of new visiting European players and recently, we have been blessed with 3 special Finnish visitors.
Frequenting our Floorball evenings have been Mika, Timo, and Tuomas. From there very first time playing Floorball in Vancouver, it was clear how much talent and experience the 3 of them possessed. The increased intensity and speed of play on Monday and Thursday were instantly evident. Recognizing Mika, Timo, and Tuomas‘ passion and enthusiasm for the game, BC Floorball executives and players (Greg Beaudin and Blair Zimmerman) approached our Finnish friends to help coach Floorball to our beginner and intermediate players. The 3 of them have helped to run and coach our West Vancouver youth and adult programs. We have greatly appreciated their dedication to growing and teaching Floorball in Vancouver.
Mika has played elite Floorball back home in Finland, as high as the second division. He has coached Floorball to children aged 5-8 years old for the past two years and coaches an adult team in Finland. Timo is also an active Floorball player. His career has mostly been in cross-country skiing but as we have seen, he is also a gifted Floorball player. Tuomas spent the last year working hard to join his 2 friends in Vancouver. He has played high-level Floorball for 9 years. All 3 of our Finnish friends have chosen to visit Vancouver to experience the Olympic games. They are students of Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences, studying Sport and Leisure, and majoring in Coaching.
Kiitos to our new Finnish friends for taking their own free time to help build our Floorball programs here in Vancouver. Please join our Finnish friends, regular players, and newcomers for some exciting Floorball on Monday (Roundhouse) and Thursday evenings (West Vancouver Community Centre). Regular schedules to resume after the Olympics. Please see the website for further details.
Chickadee magazine, a terrific Canadian magazine for kids, puts its focus on various types of Hockey in its current issue.
In their image above, Floorball is compared to other forms of indoor off-ice hockey…and it even made the bonus question: “in which game do the goalies not have to use a stick?”. I’m so glad that Chickadee noticed this great game! Our only quibble? They show florball players wearing helmets, which aren’t necessary at all. Floorball rules and equipment make it so safe that even little kids can play in no fear of injury.
Check out the article in the current issue of Chickadee Magazine: http://owlkids.com and for more information on floorball for kids in our community, go to www.bcfloorball.com
