WEB EXCLUSIVE

There are thousands of different places in our world and with many locations comes many different sports. Floorball is one of these games. Floorball is a globally competitive sport played much like hockey.The sport was invented in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the late 1960s and has grown a lot throughout Europe since then. 

Here at Oviedo High School, students have taken an interest in this athletic competition. 

Liam Williamsson, a senior at OHS, currently plays on our US U19 Floorball team.

This past November, Williamsson went to California for floorball’s Golden Gate National tournament. He didn’t come back with a personal win, but the tournament did prove to give a win to the growth of floorball in the U.S. He played at the World Championships for U19 in Halifax, Canada earlier this year.

“Our U.S. national teams are doing a lot better now. We’ve gone from being like one of the worst ones there and we’re starting to make our way up to like we’re a lot better,” Williamsson said. “We have World Championships for a men’s team coming up next year as well.”

Not only has our U.S. team been improving but the sport has been growing a lot in the past couple years. 

“Floorball is growing in the U.S. pretty quickly. You have a lot of club teams popping up all over us and a lot of tournaments, becoming more organized and way more professional,” Williamsson said.

Floorball is played on a gym floor. It typically has surrounding boards like hockey, only they go up about two feet. The rules and basics are very similar to hockey. Instead of skating, the player will have to do a lot of running during the game. The goal of floorball is the same as most team sports we see: Get the ball in the opponents’ goal. 

There’s a goalie and five other players per team on the court. All equipment needed to play is running shoes, a stick and a ball.The puck(as in hockey) is switched out for a light-weight plastic wiffle ball. The stick is made to be very light-weight as well as the ball to make it easy to maneuver. The sticks light-weight durability makes the sport safe without the use of any protective pads. The only protection needed are glasses to protect your eyes from getting hit by the ball. 

There are also a variety of penalties seen in floorball like hockey such as: roughing, delay of game, tripping, etc.

Anders Buvarp, a member of the board of directors for USA Floorball, said these competitions are widely popular across the U.S. 

“Tournaments are where teams and people from all over the country are invited to participate,” Burvarp said. “It drives a lot of competition and a lot of excitement and people get excited about floorball.”