Sweden is an amazing country. Like any other country, it stands out for its customs, culture, cuisine and, of course, sports. But every country should stand out with its national sport, because national sport is a world heritage and a great contribution to culture. That's how floorball or, in Swedish, innebandi, was created.
According to the source, floorball is one of the most popular sports in Scandinavia, central Europe, the United States, China and Southeast Asia. Floorball is now recognised in over 80 countries, of which 75 are members of the International Federation. The Floorball World Championship is held every two years and the European Floorball Cup is held annually.
Floorball itself is a variation of ball hockey. The game is played indoors on a hard flat floor with a plastic or lead ball, which is hit with a special stick. The aim of the game is to score a goal into the opponent's goal.
You don't need anything to play floorball except a special stick and a plastic or lead ball. It's not that much, right?
By the way, in the first floorball championships, the ball was titanium. But for the safety of the players, the ball was made lead, otherwise they would have been seriously injured in the competition.
Like I said, floorball is very similar to ball hockey. Even the rules of these games are similar. Based on this, it can be said that floorball is partly based on ice hockey. It's not played on ice, though.
The history of this sport says the following:
The idea for floorball originated with Swedish physics scientist Klaus Hagenast, who was looking for a sporting game that could be played in educational institutions and special grounds. That's when the USA came to his rescue with its Cosom branded sticks, which were only popular among Canadian and American teenagers. In Sweden, however, Cosom sticks are particularly popular in educational institutions. This is why floorball is believed to have been invented in Sweden.
In 1981, the first national association, the Swedish Floorball Federation, came into being. In 1985 national federations were founded in Switzerland and Finland, and in 1986 together with the Swedes they founded the International Floorball Federation (IFF). This event took place in the Swedish town of Huskvarna.
The first World Championship was held in 1996 in Sweden. 12 teams took part in this tournament. At the 7th World Championship, held in Prague in December 2008, a total of 48 matches were played and watched by 104,000 spectators. More than 14,000 fans came to watch the final.
The 2014 World Championships, held in Gothenburg, Sweden, set a new record for total tournament attendance of 104,445 spectators.
That's all I wanted to tell you about. Thank you for listening to me!