itshalfempty

Earlier this month I refereed Floor Hockey at the Special Olympics. Being my first exposure to both Floor Hockey and the Special Olympics, I was pretty surprised to show up and see just how quick the games were! I spent some time before the event reading through the rules and trying to find videos of games online. Unfortuantely, there isn’t too much on the internet about floor hockey, so I figured I’d share some of my experiences.

Compared to Ice Hockey

Some of the basics of the game are similar to ice hockey. Each team fields 5 players and 1 goalie at a time. The objective of the game is to score by getting the puck into the opposing team’s net. Play takes place on a basketball court size play area, ringed with soft barriers to keep the puck in play. And the goal is placed so there is space behind the net for play to occur.

But there’s quite a lot that is different from ice hockey.

For one, instead of a solid rubber puck, the puck is a soft felt ring 8” in diameter with a 4” hole in the middle. Players move the puck around by using effectively broom sticks with felt tips. Placing the end of the stick through the center hole of the puck makes it pretty easy to drag or push the puck around, and with some practice you can elevate the puck on a shot. Stick checks are pretty effective to force a player to lose control of the puck. And because the puck is so large, screens are very effective at stopping shots.

Mobility is also very different. Running around on two feet makes movement much more similar to basketball than ice hockey. Offsides is not a rule in floor hockey, so turnovers can lead to a shot on the other net very quickly.

There are also a few rules that exist for player safety. The most impactful changes that I saw were rules around the crease. The crease is actually a little larger than in Ice Hockey - and no player is allowed into the crease, other than the goalie. Even more - no player from the opposing team is allowed to put their sticks into the crease either. We called crease violations very frequently in the first games, but players did adjust pretty quickly over the course of the day.

Goalies are another significant change from ice hockey. While not required to, many wear ice hockey pads. In theory that might help keep them safe from errant sticks, it really just adds some bulk to players in the net. They are not allowed to leave the crease, and must play standing on both feet. After making a save, goalies can throw the puck to a team mate, but it must be to a player in the corner.

A Level playing field

There are a lot of rules that exist, at least I think, to reduce the chances of a single person dominating the entire game. Teams are required to have quite a few players, players varied significantly in their skill level and mobility. Despite the skill differences, the rules seemed to be very effective at getting the entire team involved.

The most impactful rules were around lines and line changes. Unlike ice hockey, lines and changes aren’t fluid - instead, line changes are forced at regular intervals. Each of the three periods has three lines, and the rules require that every player is on a roughly equal number of lines. Part of the job of the scorekeeper is keeping track of which players are playing in each line.

Faceoffs are also a bit confusing, and I think it’s also to help ensure that a single player can’t dominate while they are on the field. Players taking the faceoff are not allowed to put their stick into the hole of the puck, and must instead either swipe or kick it out of the faceoff circle. Once the puck leaves the circle, someone else must be the first player to touch the puck. This rule is one of the least straightforward rules in the entire rulebook, and it can be difficult to enforce since the faceoff happens so quickly.

Things we got wrong

There were a couple of rules we ignored or got wrong.

1. Crease violations. When a player is called for a crease violation, the puck is supposed to go into that player’s defensive zone for a face-off. We called it like in Ice Hockey, where crease violations are generally called only on the offensive team, and force a face-off at the closest face-off dot. We realized about halfway through the day how impactful defensive crease violations could be, but didn’t want to change the way we handled these half-way through the event. Fortunately, defensive players were pretty good about staying out of the crease.
2. Run-time. Only the last three minutes of the game are supposed to use stop-time, but the rules are pretty vague about run-time. The clock is supposed to keep running except for goals, penalties, timeouts, line changes, or “or any time the referee so designates.” We didn’t have a good game plan for when to stop the clock, and ended up just running the entire game using stop-time. It ended up making the games run a bit long though, and players were clearly pretty exausted by the end of the day.
3. Pucks not fully getting into the net. It was pretty tough to tell exactly where the goal line was since it was not marked. Because the puck is so big, it was pretty tough to tell if the puck made it all the way past the goal line. I think there were probably a couple of calls for a “no-goal” that maybe were actually a goal, and perhaps the opposite is true.

What I’d do differently next year

I wasn’t personally prepared for this event. I had assumed that it would be a little more put together than it was, with more support for volunteers. I don’t mind that it wasn’t, but it would have been nice to have a heads-up!

1. No coffee or food was provided, just bottled water. Given the early start time, I was under caffeinated! I’ll definitely make sure to make/bring some coffee, and probably a few snacks and water. I could also bring a lunch as well - though we ended up getting pizza.
2. Equipment. There were only two unwashed and dirty ref shirts, and a couple of whistles. Fortunately the ref shirt fit me. And I just don’t want to think about the hygenics of a used whistle. Next year I’ll just get my own ref shirt, a whistle, and probably a stopwatch or wear a chronometer watch.