Photo:  Adam Troy

At the 2022 Golden Gate Cup, USA Floorball President Calle Karlsson announced that he had asked me to take on a new role within USA Floorball, that of Competition Manager.  It mirrors the role of the Competition Department at the IFF, which has responsibility for the standard, high quality events we see annually, such as the various WFC's and WFCQ's.  They also work with the referees to ensure that experience officials work the games.

In our case here in the US, the responsibility of the Competition Manager is to ensure first, that tournaments and events are carried out consistently around the country, and with a high degree of professionalism and competitiveness.  All participants spend a great deal of money and time traveling to these events, and we want everyone to know ahead of time how the events will be run and conducted. 

To facilitate this process, I invited a selection of active floorball folks from around the country to join a Competition Committee.  In choosing members, I looked for well-known local leaders from both large established clubs as well as newer and smaller clubs.  Six people accepted and have offered input and their thoughts either on group calls or via email.

The purpose of this committee was to create a rules sheet that all USA Floorball-sanctioned tournaments would follow.  It was also the purpose to formally accept the current ranking system and determine the way tournaments would be seeded going forward.  Finally, we wanted to create a standardized schedule that would handle any number of teams from 4 to 16 on a single weekend, then work to have sample budgets and ways to help clubs around the country host anything from a weekend four-team jamboree to a full 16-team US National Championship.

Our first portion of the work has been completed and we are excited to share this with you here today!  On this page are links to the schedule document, which as a single tab for each possible team arrangement from 4 to 16 teams.  We also are linking in the USA Floorball Tournament Rules sheet.  This sheet is mandatory for any tournament that is sanctioned by USA Floorball. 

So what is a sanctioned tournament?  It is a tournament that has been approved by USA Floorball, specifically via the Competition Committee, and ensures the US floorball community that the tournament will be held in a very standard and professional way.  The schedule will be known ahead of time, and participants can know that there will be certified referees used.  Also, sanctioned tournaments will count in the ranking system and will help clubs measure themselves against others, and facilitate future tournament seeding for competitive pool games where everyone can enjoy themselves, but still have a chance to win the tournament.

The Committee also decided to run the official USA Floorball season from October 1 to September 30, with the National Championships held always around Labor Day.  This year's US National Championships will be held in Dallas, Texas, from September 2-4, and will be the first tournament to use this system formally.

The Committee made a few decisions as well, regarding eligibility of players.  First, ALL participants in USA Floorball-sanctioned events must have USA Floorball membership.  Moving forward we will check this before the tournament begins and issue red cards for those not holding membership. 

In the specific case of the National Championships, we have also decided that no foreign-based players are eligible to compete.  This means that you must either be a US citizen or a non-US citizen living in the United States in order to play at the National Championships.  We have at least 2-3 other tournaments per year that are open to all, and we feel strongly that Nationals should only feature the US floorball community.

We will have an open meeting on Saturday night at Nationals to discuss this and other upcoming changes.  We are turning now to take a serious look at the US club and membership structure, and how to best help clubs with organization, membership, websites, and statistics.  We will have more to comment on these in the upcoming months, and at this time a full discussion will take place at Nationals on Saturday night. 

We'll open registration this week for Nationals, and we are hoping for 12 teams or more to join us in Dallas!  The cost will be $1,300 per team, and we will have the Gerflor down at Elzie, as well as at least one Euro-based referee.  We'll make another announcement soon about the details but we're looking forward to a great weekend in Dallas!

Thank you to the members of the Competition Committee who have joined calls and helped guide this process:

Keene Addington, Chicago
Daniel Williamsson, Orlando
Steve Wilburn, Fresno
Richard Hedlind, Colorado
Jeff Knight, Birmingham
Mark Raup, Austin

Documents:

USA Floorball Tournament Rules - 2023 Edition
USA Floorball Schedules & Brackets