Olympic inclusion is a big deal, sure, but right now, one sport is celebrating wildly over its first inclusion in a multi-sport event, and it doesn’t include Olympic rings.
Floorball, governed by the International Floorball Federation (IFF), will make its big debut in an international sports festival next year, when it comes to the 2017 World Games in Wroclaw, Poland. And planners who don’t have this sport on their radar yet might want to brace for action, as this one is showing all the rumblings of growth. Because after all, the next iteration of the World Games, the 2021 event, will be held in Birmingham, Alabama.
In the meantime, according to Inside The Games, the IFF is looking for a host for the women’s World Championships in 2021 and the men’s championships in 2022. (The women’s World Championships are scheduled to take place from December 4 to 12, 2021, while the men’s are planned for December 3 to 11, 2022. However, alternative dates are likely to be considered for the latter, as the 2022 FIFA World Cup is due to be held from November 21 to December 18 in Qatar.)
Floorball is already making strides. In addition to being a popular indoor sport in a number of countries, it’s a much-anticipated part of the Special Olympics, where a modified form is played. Floorball was a demonstration sport at the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games, and will be played again at those Games in 2017.
As a primer for the uninitiated, floorball is played indoors with a stick blade that looks a bit like a cross between a hockey stick and a lacrosse stick, with a ball that looks a bit like a whiffle ball. Full details can be found here.
Presently, the IFF is celebrating World Games inclusion, calling it “an important step on the sport’s Olympic path.”
And for those who want to laugh and assert that a sport with a small playing area, a plastic whiffle-like ball and small team sides could never make it big, SDM has one word for you: pickleball. (Enough said)
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