A floor show for trio

By Justin Robertson
IT’S played with a stick and ball but it’s not called hockey.
And Ben Monckton, Paul Hogg and Gavin Staindl have just been picked as the only three Victorians in an 18-member Australian squad to go to the world floorball championship in Finland on 4 December.
While all three Pakenham locals have been involved with the sport for more than a decade, it will be their first time to the Nordic country – and for Hogg it’s going to be a memorable trip
“It’s pretty exciting to represent your country, I’ll tell you that,” the 21-year-old, who started playing the sport after reading an ad in the Pakenham Gazette 14 years ago, said.
“To travel to a place that far away will be a good experience to see how other countries play.”
Floorball is a fast-paced indoor sport which harnesses elements of ice hockey and combines such with some soccer and basketball skills.
The sport started in Sweden in the 1970s as another form of hockey, but unlike field hockey, bumping is allowed in floorball and it is played in a fashion similar to ice hockey.
“I like the physical side, it’s fast, a lot faster than basketball, but you can’t ram people over the boards,” Hogg said.
“I have played field hockey before but floorball is just a great change.”
To make the Australian team, the three had to qualify through the initial Australian Pacific Floorball Championship, a tournament all floorball players attend to try out for the first round of cuts.
They then headed to Sydney and played in the Australian Floorball Open, where coaches and scouts trimmed the list further for the final 18-member training camp, which was also held in Sydney.
This year’s try-outs were the most gruelling Monckton had encountered during his 10 years of playing the sport.
“Seeing we are playing Finland in Finland – they are ranked number one in the world – the selectors wanted to pick a very strong team,” he said. “It’ll be a pretty tough World Cup.”
It’s no surprise the teams to beat in this year’s championship are the host country and second-ranked Sweden.
But Monckton – who has been selected in the national team six times – said the Australian team, ranked 30th, was still an outside chance to win.
“We’ll go close, but this will be one of the toughest tournaments we’ve been in,” he said.
“It’s definitely an experience I can’t wait to have.
“It will be just as exciting as the first time I went out onto the court.”
It was a school clinic where Monckton first attempted the sport and he has been playing it since, dedicating the last four years to the Pakenham Squishees.
“I just loved it,” he said. “I liked watching ice hockey and field hockey on TV and I always wanted to try, so I joined up and started playing,” he said.
“It’s all about having fun, so that’s what I like about it.”