Do you love hockey? Do you love all types of hockey? I LOVE Hockey! I love ice hockey, I love roller hockey and I love floor hockey. My first recollection of hockey is playing ball hockey in the basement of the house I grew up in just outside Minneapolis-St. Paul. I used saw horses as goals and my Mom was the goalie. I started on the ice at age four. My Dad was the high school team coach and the president of our association. He would take me to the outdoor rink while he had practice and he would put me on the pleasure rink and I learned how to skate on my own.
My real hockey development never happened on the ice. It happened in the gym of my Dad's elementary school. He was the principal. I was lucky, I would talk him into playing floor hockey in the gym. That is where I learned to play and love the game of hockey. I can remember pulling the plastic sticks and nets out of the equipment room to this very day. Sometimes we used a puck and sometimes we used a ball. It didn't matter as long as I was playing.
I spent hours playing in that gym. Sometimes by myself and sometimes with a bunch of friends that I invited to play. We played for hours. When my Dad would tell us it was time to leave I'd be heart broken. I couldn't get enough.
Fast forward 25-30 years. I was introduced to floorball 2 years ago when I was coaching youth ice hockey. The team I was coaching practiced on the ice two hours a week. Hardly enough time to work on the basic skills to be able to play the game. One of those practices was a shared practice where we could only use half the ice. I heard about a team from another club that played floorball as a way to work on skills and team tactics off the ice. Wow! What an idea! I had to find out more.
What i have found out:
Floorball is floor hockey with some rules similar to soccer
Floorball at the highest levels is very competitive and takes a tremendous amount of athleticism to be able to play it
Floorball is a good recreational sport for all ages/boys, girls, men and women alike
Floorball can be used to learn skills for ice hockey off the ice
Floorball is in-expensive
Floorball can instill the love of the game into players today just like floor hockey did for me!
I LOVE Hockey!
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ReplyDeleteDoug said...
Can't find ice!
I get so frustrated by the time or should I say no time to practice hockey. I grew up playing in the streets, and on the ponds. A place to play was never a problem or at the premium it has reached here in Southern California, its borderline robbery what they charge, and is what is stopping our kids from developing the way they need.I have been coaching for many years and have always been disappointed on the amount of time that is dedicated to practice.
I reflect back to the times I would get home ( a few years ago) from school, and could not wait to hit our street to play boot hockey. We played until dark, and I remember using my grandpa's car to light up the back yard so we could keep playing.
One day I was coaching a local AAA team with a friend, and he introduced us to FloorBall, wow our life changed. All I could do was to flash back to those cold days in the street, backyard driveway's, and ponds.
It is unbelievable how much this new found game has had an impact on my current teams. We use it to dry land before practice, and play games as a warm up before our ice hockey games.
The extra time needed to work skills is now affordable and most of all fun, again!
I have no doubt this will help make develop our hockey players, and help get more people involved in the sport I LOVE!
Affordable, easy to play, a sport for everyone, the soccer of Hockey, and all you need is a stick and ball.....