Weird/New Sports

[Young Drachma]

My friends and I play a game called Toccer (http://www.toccer.com) which is one of the fastest games in the world - essentially a racquet sport combined with a field game. Sounds weird, but its pretty intense.

Anyway, through the development of the game, I've seen that there are a ton of really odd sports out there - or some I've just never heard of.

Here are a few..

Floorball (http://www.afacorp.com/floorball_usa/history.htm)
USA Floorball (http://www.usafloorball.org/)

Gateball (http://www.gateball.or.jp/jguweb/wgu/gameofgtbl/file/gameofgtbl.html)

Casting (http://www.worldgames-iwga.org/vsite/vcontent/page/custom/0,8510,1044-127176-128483-18052-62403-custom-item,00.html)

The World Games (http://www.worldgames-iwga.org/vsite/vcontent/page/custom/0,8510,1044-16970-18120-4796-12930-custom-item,00.html)
The world games are this event that are held in non-olympic years which is essentially demonstration sports on display. No one hears about it, but...yeah, its pretty interesting what goes on out there.

[Danny]

I think this game is also called lacrosse

[GoldenEagle]

Floorball sounds fun as hell.

[Danny]

Floorball does sound cool. Especially for someone like me who skates like a one legged monkey.

[Young Drachma]

I think this game is also called lacrosse

Nah...we play with racquets. The ball moves a heck of a lot faster and its harder to control. It's harder to play in goal, we don't wear helmets or anything that like.

The only thing lacrosse-like is the way defending guard the opposition, though checking isn't allowed like it is in lacrosse. Toccer is a more wide-open game, too.

Though its no accident that some of most fervent players are guys who played lacrosse.

[riz]

Floorball does sound cool. Especially for someone like me who skates like a one legged monkey.

Floorball is a killer sport. Really. Take it from someone who grew up in the last generation in Finland just before kids started training "professionally" in teams. We played it for fun as kids and as teenagers we set up our own team. Some of us had played in proper junior teams and had been coached a bit but mostly we just played for fun and got into Division 3 eventually. It's damn good fun and damn good conditioning. And its easy to pick up but hard to master. So you can start off and have fun at the first go and still after years of playing you find yourself trying to improve and master more elements of the game.

I had to quit playing hockey as a kid because I was a bit better in soccer (and of slight build) and had to focus on that, but floorball gave me the chance to play a similar game without breaking my bones but with all the stickhandling and playmaking elements. When you practise a bit with the stick and a ball, you can do amazing things. Those lacrosse-goals by Mike Legg and Sidney Crosby ? Pretty common thing to see in floorball games.

If anyone wants tips or links to sites about this, just give me a shout. Since moving over to UK I've been playing here with the Cambridge team (some locals but a lot of scandinavians and swiss/czech players because of the university) and now I'm playing with the London team.

Some nice movies of floorball plays can be found on this page:
http://www.southernvipers.co.uk (just click on "movies" on the right)

The "lacrosse" trick thing is called an "airhook" in floorball and this one shows one of the original "inventors" of the trick in action in a national team game.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/p.goodman2/southernvipers/screen1/CM2002_01.MPG
Let's see Crosby do that :)

[Coder]

Floorball is huge here as far as competitors go, but they're not getting many spectators.. it's a heck of a lot more fun to play than to watch.. however, major sports such as soccer and hockey are losing kids to floorball.. it's easier to play and much much cheaper on the parents.

We always played floorball in gymclass at least once a week when I was growing up, and we had a room where we played it during breaks as well..

[Honolulu_Blue]

Looks like fun, but I just read the rules and...

You are not allowed to:
- hold, check, block or trip an opponent,
- hit, block, lift, push down or kick an opponents stick...

That basically rules me out. If I can't check anyone, I don't think I'd last too long in a game.

[Danny]

Good point. I need a sport where I can take advantage of my size.