No pucks, just balls

Hockey-mad Quebec prepares itself
for fast-paced import Floorball

WINNING THE BATTLES DOWN LOW:
Chasing the whiffle ball

by CHRISTOPHER SYKES

It’s been said time and time again that hockey is everything to us Montrealers. If you buy into the Habs PR campaign, the whole damned city is hockey. Even the academics are on board, as the Université de Montréal offers a theology course in hockey as religion. National and provincial histories are steeped in hockey lore: the Rocket’s March 1955 suspension for the remainder of the NHL regular season and playoffs resulted in francophone Quebecers rioting in the streets of the 514 and is seen as a catalyst for nothing less than the Quiet Revolution. But as spring arrives and it’s (mercifully) harder to stumble upon a sufficient patch of ice, it’s time for diehard fans of puck to find alternative ways to get their fix.

Floorball is a fast-paced sport played indoors that combines aspects of ice hockey and bandy—another ice-based hockey derivative popular in Scandinavia and Russia that takes place on a soccer pitch-sized sheet with players brandishing smallish sticks similar to those used in field hockey—with your high school gym teacher’s favourite reward: floor hockey. While floorball is for the most part a curiosity here in Canada, it enjoys enormous success in Europe, where professional leagues in traditional hockey bastions like Sweden and Finland are privy to national exposure and healthy paycheques.

From Europe with love

For Joe Cadigal, 42, president of the Quebec Floorball Association, it was his love of hockey that brought him to the game. “A Finnish friend of mine asked me after playing hockey one day if I’ve ever tried floorball,” says Cadigal while suiting up for a match with his team at CÉGEP Saint-Laurent. “I’d never even heard of it. He invited me to watch a game and I was instantly smitten. It was exactly what I was looking for out of hockey without all the stick work and checking. Floorball concentrates more on speed, individual skill and cardio”.

Like hockey, floorball is played five-a-side with a goalie manning each net. Unlike floor hockey, which uses hockey sticks and a tennis ball or foam puck, floorballers brandish metre-long plastic sticks and a perforated plastic whiffle ball that makes an intriguing whizzing sound when shot. The goalie does not wield a stick but may don thin gloves to protect hands from the sting of a rapidly moving whiffle ball or an errant stick. With no goalie stick, Cadigal explains, the position is played butterfly-style on the knees.

“It’s more acrobatic than hockey because you’re not standing up,” Cadigal says while taking a breather at halftime. “People slight in stature can prosper at any position because of the game’s emphasis on skill.” With immediate stoppage in play for body contact or slashing the opposing player’s stick, I note that the game must be Don Cherry’s worst nightmare. “Respect and camaraderie are the most important parts of the game—thanking the referees and the other players after the match for example.”

GOAL LIKE A BUTTERFLY: Joe Cadigal in nets

Celebrity endorsement welcome

Cadigal, who manned the nets of Canada’s national floorball team back in 2006, donates many hours of his free time to foster the growth of the sport in Quebec. “We’re trying to grow Floorball by exposing it to the kids at school, but I’ve been running into opposition from local school boards. It’s tough. The boards are concerned about everything from the floors being scratched up to floorball being too violent of a sport, which is far from the case.”

I mention enigmatic Canadiens star Alexei Kovalev is making a guest spot on the popular Radio-Canada comedy Les Boys and ask if a blessing of an NHLer of his stature is needed to bring the sport to the mainstream in Quebec. “We tried to get Saku Koivu involved but he’s such a busy guy,” chuckles the happy-go-lucky Cadigal. “If you look to Europe, you have all these NHL stars that have played floorball: Marian Gaborik played, Mats Sundin played. Börje Salming has his own company [producing equipment for the game]. Of course I’m very optimistic, but I don’t see why we can’t have our own professional leagues somewhere down the road.”

FOR MORE INFO ON THE QUEBEC
FLOORBALL ASSOCIATION, SEE
FLOORBALLMONTREAL.COM OR
FLOORBALLQUEBEC.COM. FREE MIXED
DROP-IN PRACTICE SESSIONS EVERY
SATURDAY FROM 12 P.M. UNTIL 2 P.M.
AT CÉGEP BOIS-DE-BOULOGNE. 16
AND OVER, FIRST TIME FREE.