St. Charles College will now be incorporating floorball into their physical education curriculum after receiving an $800 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
The Ontario Federation of School Athletic Association (OFSAA), with the financial support of Trillium, will be funding 260 schools across the province to help them incorporate a new sport or physical activity into their school. St. Charles is one of the schools across the province that has been chosen for such funding.
The school had a choice of what sport or activity to introduce and Chantal Dagostino, the program leader for physical education and co-curricular activities at St. Charles College, said she thought floorball would be really accepted by the students. She said that she was hoping that the interest and participation level would be high, since it was a sport that not too many people had ever played before.
The students really enjoy floor hockey, so she said she knew that floorball would be a success.
The school held a "Try Day" on Wednesday in the school's gymnasium. All students were able to witness demonstrations and try the game out for themselves. The demonstrations were given by the Ontario Floorball Federation.
Dagostino said the kids were really enjoying themselves.
"The kids want to play tomorrow," she said excitedly about the feedback she had received from the students.
She said she really wanted to get the kids more involved in physical activities and thought this would be the sport to do so.
"I thought it was an awesome sport," said Grade 9 student Austin Spencer after he participated in the sport. "It's kind of like hockey, except there's no body checking."
Spencer's peer Ben Huot agreed.
"I thought it was very fun and it was very enjoyable," Huot
said. "You don't need a lot of skill to play."
Huot said the sport was fun and fast-paced, and he enjoyed it
more than basketball or soccer.
Juha Mikkola from the Ontario Floorball Federation said the kids really enjoyed the demonstrations and playing the sport. He said they would be probably be playing floor hockey right now, and the equipment for that sport is quite flimsy.
"We call it skill diluting equipment, where even if you're a really good player you can't really shoot very well or control the ball," said Mikkola.
"The equipment's a lot better" he said of the floorball
equipment. "I think the kids connect with that right away."
Said there's more opportunity to get hurt in floor hockey
as a lot of slashing may occur. It's not like that in
floorball. Floorball is a non-contact sport.
"It's clean, fast, open play which I think the kids really relate to," Mikkola said.
Mikkola added that floorball is great for off-ice training,
especially in a city like Sudbury where hockey is extremely
popular.
Floorball has a national team and Team Canada is recruiting a
U19 team for the first time. People that are interested in
trying out can receive more information at
www.floorballontario.com
. There is also an OFSSA tournament for the sport in Grimsby in
October.
Juha Mikkola is available for contact for those interested in the sport. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or by telephoning 416-830-3992.
Another website for those who are interested is www.zorroacademy.com .
