FLOORBALL IN A NUTSHELL

Floorball is a fast growing type of hockey played indoors with "plastic" sticks and a light weight plastic ball with holes. In New Zealand the sport is also known as unihoc or unihockey and sometimes played in schools. Typically five field players and a goalkeeper (without a stick) play on a fully enclosed rink. The goals are set in so play continues behind the goal-line, similar to ice hockey. Floorball is a safe, fast and fun sport and easy for people to pick up as other than a stick, no protective gear is required. There are few rules, mainly to make it a safe sport for everyone.

The sport was developed in the 1970s and first appeared in Scandinavia and central Europe. It has since grown to a sport being played world wide. It is played professionally in Europe and World Championships are held every two years with even years having men's and uneven years having women's World Championships. Sweden (women) and Finland (men) are the current World Champions.

The International Floorball Federation (IFF) has been founded in 1986 by Sweden, Finland and Switzerland and has currently about 50 member countries. Floorball has now a total of 300,000 licensed players and a total of 2 million recreational players in the world. It is recognised by the International Olympic Committee and IFF is working towards Floorball to be added to the Olympic Games in the future.