Think of floor hockey. Now add boards, take away the physical play, decrease the length of the stick and make the game co-ed. What you are left with is floorball: the new sport that is starting to sweep its way across North America.
At U of T, the floorball scene has steadily been gaining momentum over the last few years. The floorball club was founded in 2002 and so far has held weekly practices and a successful campus-wide intramural tournament.
“We have about 30 to 40 people out every week” said enthusiastic beginner Os Matias of the weekly meetings. “We play in the upper gym of the Athletic Centre (AC) Saturdays from 3-5 pm. The official game is three 20 minute periods.”
Juha Mikkola is the current chairperson and founder of the U of T floorball club, and has been instrumental in organizing floorball events at the school for the last two years. Johanna Kytola is the current president of the women’s floorball team.
Mikkola points out that floorball began almost 20 years ago in Scandinavia: “It’s governing body, the International Floorball Federation, was founded in 1986 and already has 31 national members overseeing 3,600 club teams and 213,000 registered players…From its humble beginnings as an alternative to floor hockey in Swedish and Finnish universities, floorball has grown to an international game played professionally in front of crowds of 15,000 and more.”
Mikkola came to U of T from a California school that had a floorball team. “At Cal Tech there was a floorball group, and I thought it natural to continue playing here,” he explained. “When I transferred to U of T I was surprised there was no team, so I decided to set one up.”
Kytola, who has been women’s president since the summer of 2002, is a woman in a sport that has been male-dominated thus far at this university. However, she has noticed that women are slowly starting to filter into practices and join the organization.
“As with most stick sports, it [floorball] tends to be male-dominated which of course means our numbers (in female players) are not so high. Fortunately more and more women are coming out,” she said. “Because of the non-contact nature of floorball, it is an ideal co-ed sport.”
Kytola believes that both men and women can compete at the same level in the floorball, but also noted that it is time for women to have their own teams-on both the university and national level: “Female players are able to compete with the boys just fine. We are hoping to set up a recruitment campaign geared specifically towards recruiting more women to play. It would be ideal to get a separate women’s team for next year, especially since Canada does not have a women’s national team yet. That way we could create a national team from our players.”
On an international note, U of T is set to be the host of the inaugural Canada Cup Floorball Championship, to be held on April 10-11.
“The tournament itself boasts several teams whose members have played or continue to play professionally in Europe,” said U of T team member Fahad Siddiqui. “Knowing that we face stiff competition, the Toronto team is working hard to make sure that a Canadian team is able to compete in the tournament.”
Mikkola also commented on the stiffness of the competition, noting that U of T is not the favourite to win the tournament. Teams from Boston, New York, Aurora, Montreal and North Carolina have expressed a desire to field teams against Toronto next weekend.
“We expect to be an underdog team, especially against Boston, who will have top players arriving from Finland, and New York, with Swedish expatriates who have had great success playing floorball in the past” said Mikkola. “Boston is the reigning unofficial North American champion, with New York a close second and Team Toronto third.”
At last year’s East Coast Floorball tournament in Raleigh, North Carolina, the U of T team finished in third place. Michael Weiss was the top Toronto scorer, amassing eight points in six games.
The Canada Cup is seen as a great way to spread news of the growing floorball phenomenon to the greater Toronto community at large. Mikkola has been busy ensuring that the tournament is well covered when it takes place at the AC.
“We’ve been doing stuff with the press, Finnish TV, City TV. I’ve been postering” said Mikkola. “We’ve managed to secure sponsors for the event, and we want to get the word out.”
