“Floorball has historically become popular in countries where ice hockey has been played, as for example Sweden, Finland and Czech Republic”, these words are lifted straight from the pages of the IFF’s own Learn, Start, Play booklet (p.27). But what exactly does this relationship look like and what implications can be drawn from it for the future development of floorball? Let’s have a look at some of the numbers behind this relationship, namely, the number of registered ice hockey players and the number of registered floorball players in the top four floorball countries (Sweden, Finland, Swizterland and Czech Republic).
Below is a table showing these figures for each country as well as the number of registered floorball players expressed as a decimal of the number registered ice hockey players (ie the number of floorball players divided by the number of ice hockey players for a particular country). The countries are ranked in ascending order based on their ‘floorball/hockey decimal’.
| Country |
Registered Floorball Players |
Registered Ice Hockey Players |
Floorball/Hockey Decimal |
| Czech Republic |
34 052 |
100 668 |
0.34 |
| Finland |
46 991 |
65 251 |
0.72 |
| Switzerland |
27 898 |
26 166 |
1.07 |
| Sweden |
121 641 |
62 003 |
1.96 |
(Statistics on registered ice hockey players are taken from the IIHF 2011 Survery of Players and statistics on registered floorball players are taken from the IFF Member Statistics).
As you can see there is quite a significant amount of variation both in terms of player numbers (for both sports) and in terms of the floorball/hockey decimal. Sweden clearly stands out with the highest number of floorball players and the highest floorball/hockey decimal by far. Czech Republic also presents an interesting case as it has the highest number of ice hockey players yet the lowest floorball/hockey decimal.
One thing to keep in mind while looking at these statistics is that floorball is a young sport and is still establishing itself and growing in all of these countries. As such these numbers should not be treated as stagnant, firmly established figures. The Czech Republic in particular is still experiencing strong growth and the number of registered players increased by approximately 6 000 players over the period 2006-2011, so the floorball/hockey decimals for these countries are still climbing higher.
Following the historical precedent of floorball flourishing in countries where ice hockey is an established major sport, the question must be asked “Where is ice hockey most popular?”. The country which immediately comes to mind is Canada, the birthplace of ice hockey and a country where the sport is a matter of national pride.
So just how big is ice hockey in Canada? Well, according to the IIHF’s website Canada has over 570 000 registered ice hockey players. To put this in perspective, if you added up all the registered ice hockey players in the table above and then doubled it you still wouldn’t get a number larger than Canada’s.
Now, you can probably see where this is leading. Let’s apply some of the floorball/hockey decimals from above to the situation of Canada. First we’ll take the Czech Republic’s decimal as a lower estimate. So, if the number of registered floorball players in Canada was equal to 34% of their number of registered hockey players they would have nearly 194 000 registered floorball players! Let’s look into these numbers a bit further and produce a few more estimates. We’ll also take the average of the four floorball/hockey decimals which works out at 1.02 and the median which works out at 0.89 as mid-range estimates. We’ll use Sweden’s floorball/hockey decimal of 1.96 as the upper estimate and we’ll apply these four different floorball/hockey decimals to calculate projections for the number of registered floorball players in Canada. The results can be seen in the table below:
Indicator
|
Floorball/Hockey Decimal |
Registered Ice Hockey Players in Canada |
Projected Registered Floorball Players in Canada |
| Czech Republic |
0.34 |
572 411 |
193 624 |
| Median |
0.89 |
|
412 226 |
| Mean |
1.02 |
|
610 000 |
| Sweden |
1.96 |
|
1122 998 |
It’s obvious quite quickly that the projected numbers here are large.. very large. Even the lowest projection is larger than the total number of registered floorball players in Sweden and Finland combined. And look at the upper estimate using Sweden’s floorball/hockey decimal; over 1 million floorball players, this number absolutely dwarfs the total number of registered floorball players worldwide which currently stands at just under 300 000.
The question must then be asked, if Canada has the largest number of registered ice hockey players, which country is in second place? Many would guess Russia due to their long history of dominance at the international level and the number of star players they produce. However, it’s actually Canada’s neighbour to the south, the United States. And how many registered players does the US have? The US has just over 500 000 registered hockey players, and while not quite as many as Canada, it’s still a very large number. Infact in terms of registered hockey players, Canada and the US are well ahead of any other country. Currently in third place is the Czech Republic which has just over 100 000 players.
Let’s apply the same floorball/hockey decimals that we used with Canada to the situation of the US and see what sort of numbers we come up with. The table below shows the estimates for the different floorball/hockey decimals:
| Indicator |
Floorball/Hockey Decimal |
Registered Ice Hockey Players in USA |
Projected Registered Floorball Players in USA |
| Czech Republic |
0.34 |
500 579 |
169 326 |
| Median |
0.89 |
|
447 105 |
| Mean |
1.02 |
|
511 400 |
| Sweden |
1.96 |
|
982 064 |
Again, while not quite as large as the estimates produced for Canada, these numbers are very large when compared to current numbers of registered floorball players. The lowest estimate is still larger than the current number of registered players in both Sweden and Finland, and the highest estimate is not too far from a million players.
So what implications and conclusions can be drawn from this analysis? Firstly and most obviously, Canada and the US have huge potential for the growth of floorball. Using the estimates above, there is the potential for anywhere between 400 000 and 2 million licensed players between the two countries.
Secondly, Canada is probably the best country to target for the development of floorball. The fundamental skills and concepts in floorball transfer easily from ice hockey and Canada’s population already has a decent knowledge of these things because of the strong ice hockey culture. Because of this Canada will be an extremely cost-effective market for floorball development. That is, Canada is likely to yield more new floorball players per dollar spent on development.
Lastly, watch for Canada to improve quickly in international competition. The sheer number of ice hockey players that exist in Canada means that their national teams will improve in leaps and bounds as the number of floorball players snowballs. Within 15 to 20 years Canada will be verging on a top four finish at the world championships.
There’s no doubt that one day Canada is going to be a giant in the floorball world, and with people like Juha Mikkola and Greg Beaudin promoting the sport the way they have been, that day is going to be sooner rather than later.
;)
Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 1:21AM | 
Some of the other matches look to be interesting too. Norway has been a threat to upset Czech Republic in recent years with a 4-4 draw between the two at the last World Championships in 2010 and a 8-5 win by Czech Republic just a few months prior to that. Slovakia is the underdog of the tournament currently being ranked 20th in the world. However, this ranking is not a true reflection of their abilities as earlier this year they lost to seventh ranked Estonia with a score of 6-4.;)
