http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola.aspx en © 2008 Salmingsports Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:36:29 GMT 30 http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/the-globe-and-mail--yahoo's-puck-daddy!.aspx FloorballPro Inc. was featured in The Globe and Mail, one of Canada's major daily papers with over two million readers, on Wednesday June 9th, 2010. In case you missed the story, see "Entrepreneur sells a different kind of hockey" by clicking the Globe and Mail logo below: The story also featured the following: Floorball at a glance The difference between floorball and floor hockey chat This weekend, our favorite National Hockey League blogger Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy wrote a story on floorball and the NHL stars using it for training. In case you missed the feature, surf over to Puck Daddy by clicking on their logo below: http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/the-globe-and-mail--yahoo's-puck-daddy!.aspx Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:36:29 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/canada-cup.aspx Reposted from www.thecanadacup.com A new North American record has been made as 57 teams have registered for the 2010 Canada Cup Floorball Championship. The annual tournament is played at York University in Toronto, Canada May 21st to 23rd, 2010. The international event is known as the crown jewel of the North American floorball circuit and brings together floorball newbies and veterans from across Canada, the United States and Europe. The Canada Cup was started in 2004 with just six teams and has now eclipsed the 50 team mark for the very first time. "We are absolutely thrilled with the interest from teams this year", says tournament co-chair Juha Mikkola. "We have seen another year of strong growth, in particular in the youth and high school divisions, a sure sign the game is growing in popularity amongst minor hockey teams and schools". The Canada Cup has seven divisions starting with Atom & Peewee, Bantam and High School and up to Adult Rec, Intermediate, Elite and Ladies. Already rumours can be heard around floorball rinks in North America about the top Elite division, which has traditionally seen appearances from some of the world's best floorball players, who are primarily professional players from Europe. "Unnamed sources tell me we might have as many 5 or 6 Swedish Super League stars here in Canada this year, including players like last year's stars Daniel Dalbjer, Alexander Nede and new names like Swedish national team goalkeeper Daniel Ramsin and Andreas Ackervi, captain of Swedish defending champions Täby", says Mikkola. "If these rumors prove to be true, seeing these players play is like watching NHL players up close and personal - it is incredible to see the creativity and skill they have and gives Canadian athletes something to aim towards". The early contenders in the Elite division appear to be defending champs Xstream IBK, Czech team SKP Nymburk, 2-time champs NYC Floorball and local challengers Salming Vikings. There will also be an Under-19 Team Canada Selects team giving Canada's next generation of floorball stars a chance to shine on the big stage along with the Floorball Club of Toronto, Ottawa Blizzard and newcomers Dunnville Floor Dogs. The Intermediate Division is huge with 15 squads challenging for the crown. There's simply too many teams to list! Last year's champs Striation Six Striators are back and joining them are three other teams from the Toronto Floorball League: the Vikings, Bulldogs and iMove Blue Collars. This division will be anyone's tot ake as some big names are there - including Innebandy Chicago, Team Canada's Ladies team, Hamilton's Sherwood Saints and a combined US/Canadian squad CAN-AM United FC. The Recreational and Ladies Divisions will have four teams each, in Rec there are three Toronto area teams who will welcome Texas United. The Texas team is traveling up from the Lone Star State where floorball is growing fast. In the Ladies division local favorites GWB will have a new Toronto challenger in DFC. The Toronto ladies will battle the Ottawa Blizzard Ladies and Minneapolis 612 from the United States. The future of floorball is with the kids and the Atom & Peewee, Bantam and High School divisions may be the most exciting to watch and hardest to predict. In Atom & Peewee, seven teams will take to the floor including two teams from Ottawa. Newcomers include Belle River, Durham and a new Hurricanes team from Toronto taking on familiar teams like the Denlow Steins and Mississauga. Bantam sees several former Atom & Peewee stars move up to the next age level. The 9-team division has Ontario teams from Belle River, Ottawa, two from Mississauga and three from Toronto. The most intriguing teams may be the Salems Cobras and Panthers who make up the first European club entry in a Canada Cup youth division. The squad from Stockholm will give the Canadian juniors a run for their money. Finally in the High School division a new record of eight teams, double the  number from last year, will go for Gold. Ontario schools participating are North Albion (Toronto), with two teams. Sherwood (Hamilton), Father McGivney (Richmond Hill), Moira (Belleville), Sir Winston Churchill (Hamilton) and St Paul Secondary (Mississauga). For the first time this division welcomes an out of province team as St. James from Winnipeg, Manitoba will challenge the Ontario schools. The 2010 Canada Cup promises to be the best to date and we can hardly wait for the event to get started. Check back to our website tomorrow to see all of the teams listed in their respective divisions. Now let the predictions begin - post your favorites to win each division on our message board. See you in Toronto May 21st! http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/canada-cup.aspx Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:18:39 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/seppo-pulkkinen-interview.aspx Normal.dotm 0 0 1 738 4207 FloorballPro Inc. 35 8 5166 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} On Thursday, February 4, 2010 I had a chance to sit down with Team Canada’s head coach Seppo Pulkkinen before practice at Sherwood Secondary School in Hamilton, Canada. First of all, who is Seppo Pulkkinen? Primarily I am a passionate coach, as I have been coaching for 35 years! For the first 25 years of my coaching life I worked in volleyball, including 6 years as the head coach of the Women’s National Team for Finland. I am a physical education teacher and a principal. I have a positive outlook on life and enjoy meeting people from all around the world and learning about difference cultures. It’s important to have a good sense of humor and not take life too seriously. Tell me about your previous coaching experience. I am coaching Happee, a floorball club in the Finnish Elite League, for the 5th season. I worked with the Finnish Women’s National Team in floorball for 6 years. Originally I started coaching floorball in the 4th division and after we moved up to the 2nd division, I started with Happee. How did you become Canada’s coach? My club Happee played KooVee in Tampere, which is the team that Harry Hannelius’ (Team Canada’s General Manager) son Lauri plays for. After the game, I spoke with Harry and he asked if I would be interested in coaching Canada. He was adamant that my English had to be very good, so he asked that I write a story in English about myself. He then called me on the phone and interviewed my in English! It was a very good time to approach me because I am very motivated to coach right now and I was looking to do something international. What style of game can fans expect Canada to play? Canada will play modern floorball; which I think is an active forward-moving game. We will not play a boring, passive, standing game. We will look to create movement with the ball and players but that being said we must remember to play good defense. Our fore-checking will be very active and we hope to use the pressure we create to make Team USA’s defense uncomfortable. I think we will be playing the style of the future! A challenge we face right now from a coaching perspective is the short time frame we have to work with the players. Right now, we will focus on beating the USA and then when we go to Helsinki we want to not just go but also compete. For a hockey coach looking for a new challenge, what are the major differences between coaching floorball and hockey? In floorball, players can’t body check and you play without blue and red lines. This results in a much simpler and more straight-line game. It gives coaches some cool new opportunities but because the game is played 5 on 5 there are lots of similar concepts and ideas. I think coaching floorball is a wonderful opportunity for an ice hockey coach. They can get reenergized and motivated. You have a strong passion for volleyball, do you think Canadian volley ball lovers should give floorball a try & why? Yes, I do. Believe it or not there are lots of drills from volleyball that transfer over to floorball. The game focuses on speed, agility and keeping the ball moving at all times, which are also important things in floorball. What has been your biggest surprise of the journey so far? Everyone is very positive and the players and staff are very motivated. What is your biggest disappointment? Nothing! If you could change one thing in Canadian floorball, it would be: To get more people playing the game. Floorball needs to be more popular in schools. It is an inexpensive game that focuses on conditioning and is very social. What do you think about the level of the Canadian-based players on your team? They are very good players with a good background in sports. Some of the players are from ball hockey which is very close to floorball. I think these two sports need to  find each other further and focus on cooperation. There are some very talented guys young guns like Joel Inouye and Mike Hayward. It’s obvious Anthony Herrington has done a great job teaching these players. You like your player’s to be creative and you usually have a few “artists” on each of your teams to score goals. Have you found your team’s “rembrant”? Yes, I have, but it is a secret. Overall we have great personalities on the team and some very skilled, artistic guys. What do you think the future of Canadian Floorball will be like? I hope that there will be cooperation with ball hockey and that the sport gets into schools. There is massive potential here because Canada has a great background in stick and ball sports. What does your club Happee think about your work with Canada, because your club is in the middle of a tight playoff race back home? They are very pleased and very supportive. I think they are proud that we are here. What have you heard about the Canada Cup? Yes, Lasse Riitesuo from Happee played a few years ago and he has talked about the Canada Cup constantly. He actually still tells stories about it. We hope to participate in a couple of years. And finally, Canada will beat the United States because: We are more skilled, faster and ultimately better on every level! http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/seppo-pulkkinen-interview.aspx Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:34:30 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/source-for-sports-demo-day.aspx Normal.dotm 0 0 1 305 1739 FloorballPro Inc. 14 3 2135 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;} Anyone who has shopped at a Source for Sports store knows they take their slogan -- we know our stuff  -- very seriously. At no time is it more evident than during the buying group's annual demo day at Copps Coliseum. The demo day is an opportunity for all 160+ Source for Sports store owners, managers and staff to get on the ice and try out the latest gear from top brands like Bauer, Easton, Graf, Reebok, CCM, Warrior, Sherwood and others. Each brand takes over one of the Copp's dressing rooms and brings out all the latest goodies from skates, sticks helmets, and gloves...  This year the event featured a major twist because in addition to the fun on the ice, Source members took part in the Salming Floorball Challenge hosted by FloorballPro. The challenge took place inside Copps Coliseum where the FBP Events Team set-up a mini-rink using official floorball boards. Four stations were created:  Timed stickhandling challenge Attack Triangle drills Shots on a real floorball goalie Fastest shot competition For most store staff, this was the first time they tried a floorball stick and the response was overwhelmingly positive. The favourite event by far was the fastest shot competition, where guys playing floorball for the first time were shooting over 80 MPH! Even though it was quickly evident the World Record of 119 MPH was safe, and even FloorballPro's internal record of 94 MPH by Vesa Mikkola was out of touch, the competition heated up above the 80 MPH threshold. When the dust settled there was one man who stood above the rest: Kirby Yeats from Kirby's Source for Sports in Victoria, British Columbia clocked an impressive 88 MPH, taking the first annual fastest shooter crown. Kirby is going to a Vancouver Canucks home game courtesy of FloorballPro and will get an exclusive behind the scenes tour of the NHL Headquarters the next time he is in Toronto. Congratulations Kirby; you are the fastest shooter in the Source family! (now watch your back!)  Thank you to Source Head Office for the opportunity to set this up and to all the Source members who took part. http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/source-for-sports-demo-day.aspx Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:14:05 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/montreal-open.aspx The fifth annual Montreal Open took place last weekend in Montreal, Quebec. Salming and FloorballPro were present in full force, setting up a beautiful booth for the Team Canada practices and try-outs and sponsoring most of the teams playing at the event. The Montreal Open is considered the second best tournament in the country after the Canada Cup and has traditionally been well organized. As a result, the event has welcomed more teams, divisions and players every single year. Unfortunately this year seemed to be a bit of a step back as the tournament was only played in one venue with 11 teams, a couple of them having less than 2 lines of players for some games. There were very few new teams and players. Hopefully next year we'll see a return to two venues and more teams. On the court, the level of play was the best seen in Montreal for several years, with the Elite and Intermediate divisions both proving to be closely matched. The short 2x12 minute games also helped keep scores down and blowouts were rare. After the Elite round-robin, it was Montreal Fight Club, the team made up of Montreal Red Light ball hockey stars and three Ontario teams (Vikings and Floorball Club from Toronto and the Ottawa Blizzard) going into the semi-final round. The close games continued, with Vikings beating FCT 1-0 and Fight Club beating Ottawa 4-1. The final was set: Vikings against Fight Club. In the round-robin, the Vikings were the only team to give Fight Club a challenge, going up 3-1 before losing 5-4. The team had two chances to tie, the first time Mike Woods hit the cross-bar and with three seconds left a questionable penalty call took away Colin Munro's chance to tie it who was alone in front of the net. The Vikings were itching to get another chance at Fight Club, but the experienced and cohesive team proved to be too much for the young Vikings in the final, defeating them 5-0 and securing another Montreal Open crown. While Fight Club continues to be in a class of their own and deserved the win, the young players on the Vikings, FCT, Ottawa and Young Guns showed they are the future of the sport in Canada. It was awesome to see so many players 25 and under get a chance to play big roles on their respective club teams and show everyone they can compete at the top level. On the Vikings alone, more than half the roster was made up of players under 20 years old - players like Mike Woods, Colin Munro, Jeff Sinkic, Julian Pedis, Dylan Craig, Jordan McColl and goaltender Luke Hare will be names to watch in Canadian floorball circles for at least the next decade. One can only hope they will continue to play floorball and keep bringing their game to a new level of competitiveness in the future. In the Intermediate round, Montreal's El Fuego beat Toronto's iMove in the final 2-0, giving iMove their second silver medal in two years. Congratulations to all the teams and players that took part and for the organizers for a good effort. For more details about the tourney, surf to the Montreal Open website at http://floorballquebec.com/node/382 http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/montreal-open.aspx Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:39:11 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/floorball-dvd.aspx As North American floorball promoters, we get a lot of requests from players, schools, hockey teams and other organizations for resources to help them get started with floorball. While we can answer some of their requests, others are simply beyond our capabilities. This used to be the case with one of our most common requests, which was for a floorball DVD that covers the basic rules of the game. Requests like this from our friends growing the game across the continent have made us realize that a DVD is sorely needed for the game to grow beyond its geographical strongholds. This spring we finally had the budget and the expertise in place to get a project of this scope started. After a few meetings, the project began to take shape and we started writing the script and the voice overs. This proved to be a much bigger task than I could have imagined. At one stage the script for the DVD, which should be 1-hour long, was 10 pages! We soon realized that in addition to the rules, we should add in a section on the benefits of floorball for hockey players as dry-land training. Anthony Herrington took the lead in creating the content and came up with some awesome drills to emphasize the transferability of floorball skills to the ice. Best of all, Hockey Canada stepped in to support the project and is planning to distribute the DVD to all 150 of their Hockey Canada Skills Academies. The most exciting (and physically grueling) days were the actual shoots. Day one was spent at the Mohawk 4-Pad in Hamilton and the Sherwood Seconday school gym. Day two was a full day at Downsview Park, which left most of the talent and the volunteers feeling like we had just organized a mini-Canada Cup! Despite the tough conditions and long days, everyone loved being on camera and did an awesome job demonstrating different skills and rules. I'm happy to say most sections were done with just 4 or 5 takes. Check out the FloorballPro Player's Club facebook group for some behind the scenes photos from the shoot. Now, this huge project is waiting on a short studio shoot to be completed after which the editing stage can begin (this is the most laborous and time consuming of all). I can hardly wait to see what the finished project will look like and I hope you are excited too!! I'd like to thank everyone who has helped out with this project so far, especially on our end: Johanna Kytola, Anthony Herrington, Tyson Rose and Steven Hoffner. Thanks also to Salming floorball in Sweden and NAMI, Salming's hockey importer, for their help with this exciting project. http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/floorball-dvd.aspx Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:22:04 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/parade-of-champions.aspx FloorballPro's partnership with the Ontario Minor Hockey Association continued this weekend during the OMHA's Hometown Hockey Show and Annual General Meeting. When I think of an AGM, I picture a slow June weekend of meetings but instead the OMHA has created a huge event around it, which is the largest gathering of minor hockey administrators in the world with over 1000 people in attendance. The AGM includes a Consumer Show with major and up and coming hockey vendors displaying their latest wares to OMHA members. All 65 teams that won OMHA championships during the past season are invited to attend a Parade of Champions, where the winning teams walk though the entire hotel complex and end their parade outdoors in the Interactive Zone. This is where FloorballPro set-up this year, our third year in attendance at the show and first in official partnership with the OMHA. Our goal at the show is to give each minor hockey player a chance to try a floorball stick for the first time. We set-up a small 3-on-3 floorball rink with plenty of sticks on hand for all interested players. If the long line at the rink and sales booth was any indication, floorball was once again well received by the OMHA hockey crowd. Check out FloorballPro's facebook group for more photos from the event. Special thanks to the OMHA for the opportunity and to the FloorballPro event team of Johanna Kytölä, Sonja Hotke, Vesa Mikkola, Fabian Jobin and Michael Borg who did a great job this weekend.We are already looking forward to next year. http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/parade-of-champions.aspx Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:37:43 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/belle-river-catches-the-floorball-bug.aspx This Easter weekend Belle River kicked off a brand new 10-team youth floorball league for 9-10 and 11-12 year olds. Instrumental to the founding of the league was local Source for Sports owner and hockey community leader Dave Bellaire. Under Dave's leadership the small Ontario community that had no prior floorball programming now 'sports' an up and coming floorball youth league. I sat down with Dave after hosting a clinic at his league's kick off session to ask him a few questions. What motivated you to start a floorball league? For me it was a number of factors. When I saw the sport at the Source show in Hamilton I was immediately interested. I always value the chance to get involved with kids sport. Starting something for the kids is a community service. All the players and their parents are already my customers so bringing in floorball and having the registration in store generated a lot of store traffic. Because the parents and kids are already my hockey customers floorball will keep them engaged in the off-season and coming back to the store. The business side of selling sticks will take care of itself... Would you recommend that other Source for Sports stores start a league? I would absolutely recommend that other stores to give this a try - the early indications are that this will be a huge success on many levels. How would a store get a league started? It is a pretty simple process, really. Here are the steps we took to get a league started from scratch: First we made a promotional video about floorball and the league which we shared with everyone: we played it in the store and sent it as an email to everyone. We would be happy to share this video with other SFS stores. We found that the most effective promotion was to show the sticks in store and talk it up to our customers. We also set up a booth at the local hockey arena during the last day of the hockey season. Through these promotional efforts we already found an initial pool of players. The next step was to rent gym which we found for just $40 for the entire Saturday morning. I had to find a school board that was interested - which in our case was the French board - but it wasn't too hard as school boards these days want to generate extra income. I called my insurance broker and set-up a policy for $500 for an entire year of floorball activity. We set a registration fee of $50 per kid to cover basic sticks, staff, insurance, gym rental. We also have some prizes and incidental stuff in the budget. Our staff person, Will, works in store for us and I hired him to run the league and officiate the games. Once we knew the fee, we created a product code in store for the league -- we do running clubs and stuff -- and people bought it just like a regular product and paid for it at the cash register. The product came with a form that parent's filled out - this again is something we would be happy to share with other stores. Overall, we promoted for 3 to 4 weeks and at first it was very slow. But people are like that, they register at the last minute. We needed 50 kids to break even and we got 65 - so this morning before our first session I was turning some away. We now plan to run the league in September too. How did you find the floorball clinic you booked with FloorballPro and Floorball Ontario? I loved it and we could not have got the league going without their help. Booking a clinic is a must, as we learned so much even though we had read up on the sport. It was also important to get our referee Will trained and that was completed during the session. Will we see a team from Belle River at the Canada Cup? We'll see what happens, it is only our first year so we will put it out there as an option. The timing is tough with May long weekend. We are very interested though and in particular want to get Will to some of the officiating clinics. Thanks for your time Dave! http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/belle-river-catches-the-floorball-bug.aspx Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:43:03 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/telus-cup.aspx The Hamilton Midget AAA's team, which includes the following members of Team Canada's Under-19 Floorball National Team and Team Salming: Joel Inoye, Dennon Koziol, Andrew Radjenovic, Pat Root and Cal Smith, have qualified to play at the National Midget Championships (Telus Cup) in Selkirk, Manitoba April 21-26. Since 1977, Canada’s National Midget Championship can lay claim to the fact that at least 175 of its graduates have gone on to the NHL. The Cup is an annual competition involving five regional champions declared from inter-branch play-downs with the host club comprising the sixth team in the competition. The six-day championship builds to the TELUS Cup Championship game which is broadcast on The Sports Network (TSN) and Le Reseau des Sports (RDS) Networks. I caught up with Anthony Herrington, who has coached the five boys at their high school Sherwood Secondary in Hamilton and is also the Head Coach of the Under-19 Floorball National Team. How do you think being part of the Hockey Canada Skills Academy in Hamilton has helped the boys get to this level? The HCSA program at Sherwood has given these 5 players extra training time to develop their individual skills.  All of these players have taken the hockey course in grades 9, 10 and 11.  That is over 600 extra hours of skill training over the past 3 years.  It takes more than individual skills to win championships, therefore the team they play for deserves the credit.  It is nice to see the boys get rewarded for their hard work and committment to training over the past few years.   Floorball is a huge part of Sherwood's hockey culture -- and a daily activity for Joel, Dennon, Cal, Andrew and Pat. Since they started playing floorball, how have you seen that floorball has improved their hockey skills? I can honestly say I have seen a huge improvement in all of their hockey stick skills (passing, shooting, stickhandling).  You notice little things like crisper passes, more accurate shots with faster releases, and finally the ability to stickhandle in tight situations.  Eye hand co-ordination is another area that has been developed, as these players can pick pucks out of the air, for tips and rebounds, and even along the boards for defencemen keeping it in at the blueline.  It is amazing to see the positive relationship for skill training that floorball has given them.  Aside from skating, floorball training is by far the best thing to do to improve your skill set. It is also very addicting, as the boys want to play everyday!!   The boys have been selected to represent Canada at the U19 World Floorball Championships in May, what type of affect has the experience of being part of the National Team program had on the boys so far? Would you recommend this for other aspiring hockey players? I think since being selected to the U-19 Team, it has opened up the "world" of Floorball for the boys in Canada.  Prior to this it was just a fun game played in gym class.  Now the boys see that it is played all over the world and at very high levels.  It has also got them connected to other players across the province and the entire country.  They are the first U-19 group to represent Canada at the Worlds, so it is a very special honour.  I think the future of floorball in Canada will grow once they come back from the tournament in May.  Any aspiring hockey player should consider this sport as it is a fun way to improve your skills and if you are serious, represent your country.   Most European NHL players -- especially the younger generation -- already play floorball growing up. Household names like Gaborik, Hossa and Sundin are at the top of this list. NHL Players like Heatley, Sakic, MacInnis and Yzerman all played at the Telus Cup before breaking into the NHL. Do you think the Hamilton boys have shot at the NHL and if so, do you think other Canadian kids will play start to play floorball to improve their chances of having a pro hockey career?   It is hard to say who will "make it" to the NHL, and it is also difficult to say that floorball will help them get there.  I think every hockey player is always looking for something to help them improve their game and to take it to the next level.  If Floorball does it for these players, or any other player in Canada for that matter, it would be amazing to see.  I do think however, that people will notice these players from Hamilton and they will want to know how they became better hockey players and of course better floorball players.   Thanks for your time Anthony!   Links: Telus Cup Hamilton Midget AAA's http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/telus-cup.aspx Tue, 07 Apr 2009 05:34:04 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/floorball-arrives-in-the-big-apple.aspx This past weekend the NYC Floorball Club organized the first-ever floorball event in New York City, the Big Apple Floorball Cup. I was there to check out the scene, promote my company and Salming and play with my friends from Innebandy Chicago. So what is it like to play floorball in New York? Well you have to start with the city itself. NYC has a vibe unlike any other place in the world... it's simply contagious. You just can't help but feel like you are right in the middle of all the action regardless of what you are doing. I'm actually a huge fan of Hong Kong and I feel New York has a similar "this is the centre of the world feel", but compared to HK New York adds in awesome shopping, great sights and a history of being the heart of America's once-mighty financial industry. While the "economic downturn" was on everyone's minds it certainly hasn't stopped people paying the same amount of rent for an 750 sq. ft. apartment that would pay for a mortgage on a $750,000 house in downtown Toronto. The best fashion hot spots continue to charge $450 for a shirt and the line at Starbucks is out the door. And where else - with the exception of LA - could you randomly run into Jessica Alba while shopping for some new jeans? Best shopping spots; Century 21 and Uniqlo. Now for the floorball side of things. The arena was a mixed use community centre at 145th and Riverside, on the outskirts of Harlem, which made for a very diverse crowd. Highlights included a full-size rink with the boards rented from North Carolina, big stands that were unfortunately mostly empty except for the players and great local Latin food options just a short walk away. For a first time tournament, the organizing team did a fine job of keeping things running (mostly) on time. I would be surprised if any of the 8 teams that participated walked away from the event with a bad feeling about the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, I had a chance to sit down with one of the tournament's main organizers, Per Hammarlund (pictured). Here's a quick transcript of our chat. JM: Hey Per, thanks for taking the time to chat with me. What is your floorball background? PH: Well, I played "floorball" in the 70's with handball goals - it was pretty much like bandy but indoors, hence the name innebandy. In the 80's I continued to play in school and in the 90's in college. At this point the game I played was 3-on-3. Believe it or not it is only when I moved to NYC that I played for the first time in this 5-on-5 format. I have been in NYC eight and a half years now and I'm here permanently. Who originally came up the idea of the Big Apple Floorball Cup and what were your aims? (thinks for a while) I think we came up with the idea at Canada Cup in 2004 - Micael Holmstom, Nicholas Aulajay, Tobias Schroetter , Mattias Lundmark and I talked about hosting a tournament in New York. Our aim for the first year is to have a small cozy tournament where people can come see New York and play relaxed floorball. The long term aim is to have New York City on the world floorball map. What is the current situation with your club, NYC Floorball? We are affiliated with the US Floorball Association so we have status through them. We run pick-up games every Wednesday on Roosevelt Island and it's open to anyone. We have between 15-20 players every week. Mostly adult men but we have a couple of women playing on a regular basis as well. North Americans make up roughly 20% of the players. Because New York is such a global city and it attracts a lot of Northern Europeans, is it easier to attract people to play floorball for your club New York? Actually, New York people are interested in sport so we tend to attract good athletes in general. We have had a few Elite league level players from Europe come through but New York is very fluid so people really move in and out constantly. We usually get 3 or 4 Elite level players per season. What are your plans for next year and going forward? Next year, we hope to have two fields and double the number of teams to 16. We are not totally set on that though so we could keep it to 8 or 10 teams if there is not enough interest. We just want to get the event on the map a little bit more so people know it is something to plan into their calendars. First year was more about proving we can do it... and I think we have done that. The timing for this year (March 28 & 29) may have been a little bit off which likely prevented some teams from participating. We will set a date early enough for next year so it does not collide with other events. We hope this will help bring in more teams, including some from Europe. Were there attempts to get the media out? No, there was not. We were just too busy personally. How about televising a game? Floorball would look great on MSG... We have thought about it but we had to cut some things out due to the limited time we had and this [media & TV stuff] was the area... Was an attempt made to find sponsors and partners? We tried. We started with the Devils and Rangers. The Devils were too busy with playoffs and they had already filled up their community calendar. The Rangers did not even respond. Riverbank State Park, our venue, has been very helpful and could be considered a partner. Micael also made sure that FloorballPro and Salming were part of this event. The free stick deliveries for players worked out really great. You guys scheduled a couple of youth demos leading up to the tournament. Tell me about those. We had a youth clinic that we organized and the Riverbank State Park invited the kids. They invited a youth hockey group and kids from the local community. The turnout was smaller than we had hoped but the park has showed an interest in doing more youth clinics and the local hockey team would like to run a youth program over the summer for dry land training. Has there been any progress in the local school system? No, we have tried but because we all work we don't have time to go host clinics during the day. Personally your team is playing for bronze. How did you compile your team and what are your thoughts on your team's performance? We accepted individual registrations and when we realized we had one line confirmed we started calling around to get people so we could form a full team. The response was good as the team got bigger than we wanted with 12 players. We had one player ride the bus from Toronto to go with players from California, North Carolina and Alaska. Considering we never had a chance to practice we have done better than we could have hoped. [Note: The squad I played for, Innebandy Chicago, defeated Per's team 8-1 in the bronze medal game] New York is the only team to win the Canada Cup twice. Will you make it a third this year? Yes. We have a core group and depending on who comes to practice we are going to pick a good team. Where did you guys find volunteers? They did a great job running the clock. We found them through my wife's work. How does someone get involved with floorball in NYC? The easiest way to get involved is to call me at (917) 250-4902. Right now our drop-in games are pretty full but we are hoping to get a youth program going in Riverbank and that would allow us to get boards and a regular slot for kids and adults to play here. Any final thoughts? I would really like to thank my fellow chairman on the board Micael and all of the volunteers who made this tournament possible both from our floorball club and outside our floorball club. Thanks for your time, Per! The tournament final was an exciting affair between the Ottawa Blizzard and the NYC Floorball Black team. Ottawa's Darren Fournier, one of the team's organizers and a good friend, scored the winner as Ottawa captured the crown for Canada with a 3-1 victory. Pascal Meier made a triumphant return to goal and Dave Toupin won the tournament's leading scorer award and a new phone courtesy of Nokia. Our squad Innebandy Chicago played a solid tourney, with four wins and two losses. Unfortunately one of those losses came at the hands of NYC Floorball Black in the semi-finals, relegating us to the bronze medal game. I can't help it but I think we had a squad capable of winning - we just couldn't score in the game that mattered most. The Blacks shut us down with good defense and beat us 2-0. We showed what we can do in the bronze game by drumming the Big Apple Cup Team 8-1 to snatch another medal for IC. I again had the pleasure of playing on the top line with PJ Eriksson and Jakub Zajac, two brilliant players and all around good guys. I hope to get another chance to play in New York next year and if all goes well join Innebandy Chicago again for a future tournament. I'd like to thank the tournament organizers for a fun weekend as well as Hakan and Martin from Innebandy Chicago who did a stellar job organizing, coaching and leading our team. More --> www.bigapplefloorballcup.com www.innebandychicago.com http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/floorball-arrives-in-the-big-apple.aspx Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:16:50 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/ville-peltonen.aspx Ville's sons Aleksi and Jesper play hockey for the Florida JR Panthers Squirt Major team. They are both big floorball fans so we thought we'd hook them up with some sweet Salming sticks! Personally it was cool to meet Ville Peltonen as I will always remember him as one of the heroes who helped Finland clinch the Hockey World Championship in 1995. Finland beat our friendly rivals Sweden 4-1 in the final game with Ville notching a hat trick. Enjoy the sticks guys! and let's try to get the JR Panthers playing some floorball as off-ice training... If you want to check out photos of other NHL players with a link to floorball, check out my facebook album. http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/ville-peltonen.aspx Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:19:52 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/canadian-floorball-in-helsingin-sanomat.aspx You can download the Helsingin Sanomat article in PDF format. It's in FINNISH and has three parts. The actual article appeared on the second page of the Helsingin Sanomat sports section today, December 29th. Salibandyä viedään Kanadaan suomalaisvoimin Uusi laji lätkähullussa maassa Kanadalaisten kommenteja  Enjoy... please post your thoughts in the Comments. Special Thanks to James Fieldhouse for suggesting this article to the Hesari editorial staff and to Erno Rautarinta for writing a great article. Last but not least thanks to everyone who has supported me in Finland and North America to help us get this far!!   http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/canadian-floorball-in-helsingin-sanomat.aspx Tue, 30 Dec 2008 07:18:41 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/international-ball.aspx What a week for floorball on the international stage. From a Canadian perspective, the most interesting news was the announcement that the International Olympic Committee has given floorball provisional recognition. What huge news for our sport. Finally some respectability for our sport, one that has always struggled for acceptance and legitimacy... even in the countries that helped "invent" it. Huge kudos to the IFF for knowing how to play the "political" side of the sports world so well and achieve the savvy first step in making our game part of the Olympics. Unfortunately what should have been a media frenzy around this piece of news has gone completely unnoticed in Canada. The IFF's poorly worded press release was sent only to the Federations of each country. Worse yet, I sensed some arrogance in the release as nowhere did the release even explain what floorball is. C'mon guys, even Apple includes a note as to who they are and what they do in each of their press releases... Worrying me on this side of the pond the lack of a coordinated push to get the mainstream, North American media to pick up on this news? Despite the historic nature of this announcement, a simple press release will not get you anywhere in this continent's competitive media marketplace. Hiring a PR consultant in partnership with the National Federations to coordinate the distribution of this news here would have been money very well spent for the IFF. North America has to "wake up" but waiting for it to do so on its own simply isn't the right way to go...Marketing the game to the masses outside of the "big 4", Germany and parts of Asia still seems like an after thought for the IFF. Simultaneously with the IOC announcement, the meaningful games of the World Championships got underway. I found myself cheering for Team USA. The US surprised many with their strong effort in the B-Division of the World Championships, losing only two games. One was in the semi-finals against eventual Champs Germany. The US rebounded with a strong effort in the bronze game - with US resident and a close buddy Vince Faso scoring two goals and getting player of the game honors. It's great to see the guys do so well and I know Salming and FloorballPro are pumped to work with you guys for the next four years. Now if you had only managed to win the B-Division we could have made sure Canada AND the USA would be playing in the next World Championships... if you're not in the know the new World Cup style championships will mean only one North American team at the Worlds in 2010. Another marketing opportunity missed. So how about the main attraction, the A-Division? The hope that this would be any more than a four horse race quickly eroded when one could again see Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and the Czech Republic in a class of their own. Personally being a Finn working with a Swedish company I felt conflicted as always to see Suomi and Sverige go head to head in the World Championship final. Paul Charbonneau, a friend and Floorball Canada board member, invited us all over to his place where he somehow rigged the live internet feed from the World Champs to show up on his big screen. Great idea but unfortunately the feed let us down and our group of hardcore floorball fans saw just snippets of the action. Let's hope the organizers of the next World Champs get their act together so the "fringe" countries like us get a chance to watch! And what's with the game having ended 4 hours ago and the front page of IFF website is still not updated? Okay enough criticism. So was I happy with the product, the marketing and the result? Great to see 14,200+ in attendance at the final. The organizers camera work and prodcution value was light years ahead of what I saw from TV4 and the Swedish Super League broadcasts. And the game on the court... let me say that despite being a floorball lover through and through, I have often criticized the product on TV as the games just don't get me excited like hockey or basketball. But when you get to see the two best teams in what became a shootout like this year's final, how can you not be on the edge of your seat all the way through? An amazing performace from both sides and I will admit... I am very happy for the Finns to finally take their first World Championship! Enjoy the moment boys. Let's hope before too long there will be more countries to challenge your crown. Maybe even Canada and the USA.  The photo of Team Finland is copyright Innebandy Magazinet http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/international-ball.aspx Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:51:24 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/innebandy-magazinet-interview.aspx Magnus Fredriksson of Innebandy Magazinet, arguably the world's most read and best looking floorball magazine, invited me to their offices in Gothenburg on Wednesday. He asked me questions regarding Canadian Floorball, including the U19 National Team and Canada Cup. The full interview will appear in next month's magazine in the Heta Stolen section. Be sure to check it out! How did I get hooked up with Innebany Magazinet? Well it's a long story. I first had the pleasure of meeting Magnus in Madrid, Spain for the C Division World Championships in 2006. Magnus had travelled down to Spain to cover the tournament. Believe it or not, he was initially prevented from taking pictures of the games by the International Floorball Federation because he was lacking the proper credentials. The silly thing is that he was the only media person in attendance and representing the leading floorball magazine in the world! Funnier still as there were only a couple of dozen spectators... In any case, Magnus was not pleased so things got sorted out and Magnus he allowed to photograph and write about the games. That's when we met and his reports - along with my blog - became the only two regularly updated news sources from the tournament. Magnus and I have kept in touch ever since and I most recently ran into him by chance at a Gothenburg 4th Division game which featured my friends Magnus Hansson, Brett Stein and Linda Salomonsson. By chance Magnus Fredriksson's team was playing their club so we talked and he decided it was time to give Canada a bit of coverage in their magazine. The actual interview started with a photo shoot (see the pic!) which was much harder than it looks. I don't have much photo studio experience so looking natural in front of a serious camera set-up is not easy for me. However Simon, the magazine photographer, did a good job and managed to catch some decent shots (I hope!). I then sat down with Magnus and met his partner Martin Zetterstedt. What was suppossed to be a quick interview turned into a passionate three hour discussion about the world of floorball, from the quality of televised games to whether or not we should change the name of our sport. I learned some interesting things like how the word "zorro" was essentially invented and popularized by Innebandy Magazinet. It's a real pleasure meeting fellow floorball nuts, especially guys like Magnus and Martin who have been around since day one and have done so much to help the game of floorball develop! Make sure to read the next issue of the magazine. Hopefully someone can post a translation of the article here.   http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/innebandy-magazinet-interview.aspx Sat, 06 Dec 2008 08:08:34 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/world's-largest-floorball-store.aspx Today I had a chance to visit Klubbhuset in Gothenburg, which claims to be the largest floorball store in the world. Definately a must for any serious floorball-head when visiting this beautiful city. When you stop by, say hello to store owner Erik, who played Junior A hockey in Omaha and is childhood friends with Daniel Alfredsson. Alfredsson is a bit of a floorball player himself and I'm doing my best to get a digital copy of an old photo in Innebandy Magazinet showing the Super Swede on the floorball court.  If you can't make it to Klubbhuset yourself, stop by their website and you'll get a good idea about the size of this place. Wondering where all the sweet Salming product is? Check out their store after Jan 1... Salming until recently had an exclusive deal with Stadium but as of next year will also be available at specialists like Klubbhuset. Right now Salming's sister brand X3M is holding down the fort. http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/world's-largest-floorball-store.aspx Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:30:06 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/team-usa-sets-unofficial-world-record.aspx In a display of American optimism, Team USA surprised everyone at the Salming office today by setting an unofficial World Record. They fit the most Salming equipment ever into a Dodge Neon. USFbA lead man David Brown and master packer Jani Blakenship did the impossible by squeezing in the contents of at least 15 boxes of Team USA equipment into the car. Dave gets the last laugh as no one at the Salming offices thought they could pull off this packing job... Jani and Dave will now spend the next 24 hours in tight quarters as they make their way down to Ostrava for Team USA's first game of the 2008 World Championships.  I want to wish the USA team the best of luck as they look to improve on their world ranking and challenge for the B Division crown. I hope the team loves their new Salming gear. Keep the Salming flag flying high fellas! Check out all the pics on facebook or the official press release at FloorballPro.com http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/team-usa-sets-unofficial-world-record.aspx Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:32:02 GMT http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/where-are-they-now.aspx Here's today's trivia question: Which floorball club outside of Canada has the greatest number of ex-TFL players? The answer just might be Guldhedens IK, part of the Gothenburg Floorball League. playfloorball.com was thrilled to catch up with ex-TFL stars Magnus Hansson, winner of the League's MVP Trophy in 2006-2007, as well as super-GM Brett Stein and arguably the greatest female player in TFL History Linda Stein (formerly Salomonsson). Magnus represents Guldhedens in the Men's 4th Division, Linda plays for Guldheden in Women's 2nd Division and Brett is making the transition to 5 on 5 European floorball playing for Guldhedens Reserve Team (Division One). This afternoon was a real bonanza for the Guldheden club with all three teams playing home games. First the women played a 5-5 draw, with Linda scoring a goal, then the Men's 2nd division team won 6-2 and in the last game of the night the Reserve team lost 6-4, with Brett scoring a goal and Magnus picking up an assist. Magnus played for both teams. To learn more about Guldheden check out their website or to learn more about the Toronto Floorball League, surf to www.playfloorball.com http://www.salmingfloorball.com/blogs/juha-mikkola/where-are-they-now.aspx Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:42:21 GMT http:// rest of text... http:// Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:20:46 GMT