by Shelden Rogers
The U19 Woman’s Floorball World Championships are coming to Belleville in 2016, but the city sees it as more than just a sporting event.
It was announced officially Tuesday at a news conference in Belleville, that the city will host 400 athletes and 16 countries for the ten day U19 Woman’s Floorball World Championship. The event will take place at the Quinte Sports Center in May 2016.
Belleville Mayor Neil Ellis said this is a great opportunity to promote the community.
“It’s about getting people here, getting people into the city, into the community and promoting the community as a whole,” said Ellis.
After returning from coaching at the U19 national floorball championships in Slovakia, Belleville’s Todd Crawford and Brett Davis had an idea.
“We realized quickly while we were there, that’s something this city could pull off, and in fact not only pull it off, we could do it better than them,” said Davis.
Davis is the General Manager for the U19 Canadian Woman’s Floorball team, along with Head Coach Crawford. Thanks to them, Belleville will now be hosting the U19 Woman’s Floorball World Championships.
It all started 7 years ago when Crawford travelled to Scandinavia with a high school hockey team. While waiting for a tour guide, he stumbled upon a rink where he found floorball.
“I went in and watched and thought, this is a really exciting sport,” said Crawford.
Floorball is very similar to hockey. It is played with five players and a goalie on each side. The game is played indoors on a wooden or rubber court. Floorball is played with a whiffle ball and a stick with a plastic blade.
From there Crawford incorporated floorball in his Hockey Canada Skills Academy at Moira Secondary School.
“Floorball has been very easy to sell to the students. They really enjoy it, it’s a low cost alternative to hockey, and enhances your skills on and off the ice,” said Crawford.
With the help of Davis, Crawford created the Belleville Floorball League, which has been running for five years now.
“We have well over 100 people playing in a floorball league in the community, and I know this announcement will help the numbers jump probably double by next year,” said Crawford.
With the world floorball championships heading to Belleville in three years, the city is excited about the opportunity.
The Mayor didn’t think twice about approving the event.
“When I was approached about this I said lets do this, lets get it out, lets lend our staff to a great organization,” said Ellis.
He sees it as an opportunity to get the city out there to the whole world.
“When you put Belleville in the whole midst of things, and think this is the first time in North America, this is just incredible how it puts us on the map,” said Ellis.
Ellis said it’s all about making this city the best it can be, and this event will do that.
Crawford also spoke about what the event means to the city.
“We are getting three years of pre-tournament buzz, and with Belleville’s name attached to that, you can’t put a price tag on that,” said Crawford.
Crawford said there has already been an article published in a German magazine about Belleville’s upcoming tournament.
Crawford is planning on a lot of community support, and hopes to break attendance records.
“We want to make this sport grow, and people can say that it happened here in Belleville.”
Aside from planning, Davis and Crawford plan on promoting the sport to Belleville in the next three years. They want to make sure people know what floorball is and how fun it can be.
They may not need to do much work.
St. Theresa’s Catholic Secondary School runs an annual floor hockey intramural tournament.
Tournament organizer Olivia Lavery says the tournament grows in attendance each year with over 100 students participating this year.
Lavery said even students that don’t play still show support.
“Everybody who doesn’t play on teams comes and watches. During the regular season, we fill out most of the bleachers during lunch, then in finals the whole gym is filled,” said Lavery.
The tournament’s success comes from both the love of hockey and school spirit.
“We have really good spirit, everybody always wants to get involved with things. Since this event includes floor hockey it draws a big crowd,” said Lavery.
Bayside Secondary School, Belleville, also holds an annual floor hockey tournament.
Colin Childerhose, a student at Bayside has been playing all five years he has been at the school.
“I really like the speed of the game and you can do a lot with the ball because of the style of the sticks,” said Childerhose.
The 2016 World Championships will be the first time the tournament has ever been held on North American soil.
Robin Nilsberth, a star defender for Sweden’s national floorball team, said having a tournament in Belleville is great for the sport.
“I think this is really good for floorball to come to North America, I see a lot of potential here,” said Nilsberth, who spoke at the news conference in Belleville.
Davis and Crawford have already been hard at work planning the event. They already have a schedule laid out and know where teams will be staying three years from now.
Note: This is an updated version of an earlier story, fixing a typo in the first sentence.