Floorball in the Big Apple

A March weekend in NYC... playing floorball? Yes, thanks to the Big Apple Floorball Cup...

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.

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www.bigapplefloorballcup.com
www.innebandychicago.com

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