Scanadian Floorball

The past weekend I was in Ottawa together with the FC Montreal team playing in the Icebreaker tournament, the first floorball tournament in Ottawa since 2006 if I remember correctly. The organizers did a good job in putting together the tournament. The schedule ran smoothly and obviously with just 4 teams in each division made it easier to handle, but congratulations for doing it well. Hopefully next year there will be more teams participating. Congratulations also to the Ottawa Blizzard  for winning the elite trophy and El Fuego for winning the intermediate division. FC Montreal finished third in elite.

On the negative side, the playing surface was not ideal for floorball but got better towards the end of the day, on both days. If this facility will be used next year a good idea would be to ask the janitor not to clean the floor before the tournament. First games we played on both Saturday and Sunday, the floor was absolutely horrible and had severe impact on the play.

Another thing that really bothered my team mates, as well as me, were the referees, who for most part lacked the necessary training and experience to referee at this level. We had seven guys on the FC Montreal team who played their first tournament in Canada, since coming from Europe, and they could not believe how poor the quality of the referees was.

I do of course understand that the organizers did the best with what they had but for future editions of the tournament better referees is a must!!

Sometimes I feel that all the priority is put on playing the games and the referees are just chosen to be there because they need to be there.

Next tournament in the schedule is the Montreal Open in early November. Final date will be confirmed shortly so stay tuned to this website and www.floorballquebec.com