Floorball is a low-budget alternative to hockey and many other sports. It is fun, fast and safe and requires no more than a stick to play.
Every Wednesday and Friday at 5 p.m. the Fairbanks floorball team takes the court in the Student Recreation Center. Armed with only an altered type of hockey stick, two teams with five players each face off for two hours of sprinting and non-stop action as they attempt to score goals on the opposing team. Play is high-speed and the competition is second to none.
“Floorball has proven to be an inexpensive way to play hockey,” says Andre Breton, a 37-year-old Ecologist who used to play hockey.
Hockey and floorball are alike in many ways. The floorball stick, though resembling the hockey stick in its shape, is not made of solid wood but of a lightweight fiber with a plastic blade. The spherical 3-inch-diameter ball has 26 little holes in it and looks much like a whiffle ball. And floorball is not played on ice but on an indoor court.
Floorball does share many rules and strategies with hockey. “Basically it’s the same game”, said Breton, “you just handle the ball differently.”
Adrian Raymond, a 21-year-old economics senior and former hockey player, says “It’s similar to hockey because there are no outs and the passing is very comparable.”
Floorball is less rough. Body and stick checking are not allowed, and physical strength, important for hockey, is not as essential in floorball. The emphasis is placed on skill, speed, and technique.
“The game is fast and there’s a lot of strategy”, said Zachary Meyers, a graduate who played soccer and basketball prior to joining the floorball team.
“There is more stick handling, whereas in hockey it is more about taking the pass and moving quickly to the other end” adds Raymond.
Floorball is ideal for people who like hockey but are not good at ice skating. “The stop-and-go pace is much harder on the ice. I was never really able to play on skates”, explains Meyers.
Another aspect that draws many participants is the financial advantage compared to hockey. “One of the reasons why I stopped playing hockey was because it was too expensive to buy new gear all the time” says Raymond. “New skates alone can cost more than $200!”
According to Play It Again Sports, Fairbanks, a complete set of used hockey gear suitable for a recreational team player can put a $200-$300 dent in one’s wallet.
A good floorball stick can cost between $40 and $50, but it is the only equipment a player needs. “It’s the poor man’s hockey” says Nicholas Aujalay, who started the team, laughing.
Aujalay, a professional floorball player from Sweden and Great Britain, lives in Fairbanks and works as an ER doctor at a local hospital. He has been playing floorball since he was 15 years old. “All kids in Sweden play floorball“, he explains. When he moved to New York five years ago, he started playing for NYC Floorball, a team that competes in the elite division of national and international contests. Among other achievements, he has won two gold medals in the Canada Cup. Aujalay moved to Fairbanks a little over two years ago. He started to play hockey because there was no floorball team. But he couldn’t live without floorball, so he decided to start a floorball team here in Fairbanks. He still plays for NYC Floorball and flies to international tournaments to play with them about three times a year.
When Aujaly decided to start the team, he thought that students might be open to it so he became a member of the SRC. This enabled him to book a court for twice a week. He put up flyers around campus and asked all his friends and work colleagues to come. At the beginning only about five players attended regularly twice a week. Gradually, more and more people joined. Most of them learned about the team through word of mouth.
This spring marks the fifth semester since the floorball team’s start. The Monkeys have about 30 players in the biweekly scrimmages.
John Bailey, president of the club, says “we named the team the Arctic Floorball Monkeys because it was “different” and we liked having a monkey logo.”
Current members are confident that floorball will continue to be a hit in Fairbanks. “It’s different from many American sports and I have never seen it before. That’s why I like it”, says Meyers, “it’s something new”.