A Special Goal

If you’ve never heard of Floorball, you wouldn’t be alone. It has barely a footprint in the United States. But to countries such as Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, it’s one of their most popular sports. It was invented in the late 1960s and official rules were first written down in 1981. The United States didn’t recognize Floorball as an official sport until 1994, and it still struggles to gain popularity in America today. Like many of her friends and neighbors, Julie Rodriguez, the Unified Sports coach at Shadow Ridge High School, knew nothing of the sport. So when the Special Olympics came to her and asked her to put together a Floorball team to compete at the Special Olympics World Winter Games, she naturally said yes. “It just sounded like an awesome opportunity,” she said.

Rodriguez got the word out, scheduled tryouts, and put together a team of students from Shadow Ridge, many of whom also didn’t know much about floorball. They set out with the monumental task of learning the sport, training, and winning the Floorball event at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Sweden in 2020. As Jackson Moran, a senior at Shadow Ridge High School and member of the team says emphatically, “Number one, that is always the goal. Always shoot for number one.”

Floorball is essentially a type of floor hockey with five players and a goalie on each team. Rodriguez, who has been coaching all types of Unified Sports for the past four years, grew up as an avid hockey fan and had taught floor hockey before, so she had some foundation to work with. Floorball has similarities to floor and regular hockey, with some minor rule differences and equipment differences.

Rhys Johansson, a senior at Shadow Ridge High School and one of the players on the team puts it a little more succinctly. “It’s like hockey but not as violent,” he said. “You play on a floor instead of an ice rink. You have a goalie who moves with their knees but not with their legs. The sticks are the same but not wooden. And you use a ball instead of a puck.”

Johansson decided to try out for the team because he was already in Unified Sports. He has competed in basketball, badminton, volleyball, soccer, and track and field for Unified Sports. “I love sports because they help me build friendships, and they help me communicate better with people,” he said. He also thinks joining the team will help inspire people to try new things.

Caden Harrison takes a shot on goal during a practice session for the Shadow Ridge High School Floorball team, as defender Jackson Moran tries to swipe the ball away.

For Jackson Moran, he decided to try out and play because of his love of ice hockey. “I love that sport so much, why not play it on the basketball court,” he said with a smile. “It’s such a great opportunity to be a part of something bigger than myself.” It also benefits his hockey game training on new techniques. “Floorball is fast,” he exclaims. “You watch the sport and think, yeah I could totally do that. But on the court it is a totally different story. It requires a lot of skill. In hockey I rely a lot on my physical ability. In this sport you can’t hit, so it’s a lot of playing smart, focused and fast.”

Being the Unified Sports coach at the high school, Rodriguez knew that she could take kids who had these passions for other sports and translate that to Floorball. She finds ways to connect sports like basketball by taking the guarding and defensive aspects of the game and aligning them it with this new sport.

But since it was a completely new sport for her, and there were so few resources out there with information on the sport, she took to Facebook to seek out help. She found a Floorball group based in Chandler and asked if anyone was interested in coming out to help. Olli Honkkila, who was born in Finland and now lives in the Valley, reached out and offered his services. He grew up playing the sport and had quite the talent for Floorball. “My athletes were astonished by his skills, skills I don’t have, with being able to handle the ball and do impressive tricks,” she said.

“It’s amazing because he grew up with it, and he knows so much more about the sport,” said Moran. “He teaches us these things like bending the stick to get more speed and ways to position yourself. It’s like learning science from Albert Einstein.”

There are three things that have been hurdles for Rodriguez and the team in preparing to compete at the world level. The first was learning the sport, training, and getting the practice needed to compete at such a high level. “It’s going good,” said Moran. “We’re improving. At the start we were a little inexperienced.” For Johansson, it was learning the more intricate details associated with the game. “I think our biggest struggle has been the communication and recognizing the plays that we need to run,” he said. But through it all, they are there for each other and recognize the importance of working through this challenge together. “These boys are really supportive of each other,” Rodriguez said. “It’s really awesome to watch.”

A bag of Floorball gear sits on the gym floor of Shadow Ridge High School. The equipment is similar to floor and regular hockey.

Another struggle with the practice aspect is being able to scrimmage. As you can imagine, there aren’t many teams around the West Valley that can give the Shadow Ridge team some much needed game experience. So they’re working on recruiting people in the community to come out and play against the team at a high level.

“We’re hoping to host a scrimmage before the Olympics where people can come and watch them play, and see what these kids can really do,” said Rodriguez. “I think that there is a stigma with the Special Olympics thinking that this is a low level of play. These kids go hard and they go fast, and it looks no different than any other team.”

The second major hurdle in preparing for the Wold Games has been fundraising. The team needs to raise enough money for equipment, uniforms, transportation, and more. As you might imagine, traveling with a team overseas to Russia can be quite expensive. The team has worked to get the word out about needing community support to realize their dream, and the response has been overwhelming. The team is still in need though, and those interested in contributing to support the team can go to their website at soazfllorball.org.

Rhys Johannson, a senior, streaks down the court toward the goal during a practice session at Shadow Ridge High School, as coaches watch and cheer him on.

“I think it’s important for people to recognize that these are your neighbors, these are the kids in your community, these are the people that are soon going to be the young adults going into the workforce, and they have so much to offer everyone and so many abilities,” said Rodriguez. “I hope that people recognize what these kids are really putting into this, they are true “ athletes that deserve this opportunity, and I am hoping that we can get the support from the community for them.”

The final hurdle the team has faced is one everyone can relate too - COVID-19. When this all started, the games were scheduled for Sweden in 2020. The team learned that those games were canceled, and they would have to wait until 2022. So Rodriguez assembled a new team as some of the players wouldn’t be able to compete in 2022. They’ve been working hard the past few years training to compete in Kazan, Russia in January 2022.

Sweden in winter is one thing, but Kazan, Russia was a whole different story. “The kids know that there is going to be a lot of snow on the ground,” said Rodriguez. “So that will be a big adjustment for these athletes. A lot of them have never seen snow, and we’re expecting Rocky IV like conditions.”

“I love the cold, which is ironic because I live in Arizona,” said Moran. “It feels so magical. I’ve never been outside the United States, so it would be really exciting to go somewhere.”

But then the unimaginable happened. On September 3rd of this year the Special Olympics officially postponed the games once again, citing the Delta variant of COVID-19 spreading around the globe, and an abundance of caution for the health and safety of athletes, volunteers, staff, and fans. Rodriguez and the team were deflated. They had been working so hard the past few months getting ready for the games, only to have the goal post moved once again. But in true Unified Sports spirit, they picked up their heads, and began to set their sights to the future. It was another year to plan, another year to fundraise, another year to practice and prepare for the games. The games were rescheduled for January 2023 in Kazan, Russia, and the Shadow Ridge team was going to be ready to win.

Olli Honkkila, a community member from Finland, demonstrates stick handling techniques to Shadow Ridge High School Floorball players during a practice session.

“I’ve coached sports in one capacity or another for over 20 years, and I find more joy out of doing the Unified Sports more than anything else,” said Rodriguez. “I love volunteering for Special Olympics and seeing these kids all work together for a common goal.”

Unified Sports brings together students with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team. It was inspired by a simple principle: training together and playing together is a quick path to friendship and understanding. For Rodriguez, this means that they are all one. “There is no identifying someone as anything other than an athlete,” she said emphatically. “They’re all athletes. They all work really hard.”

“I have this idea of the whole meaning of life,” she continued. “And for me it’s trying to make other people’s lives on earth as good as I can. When I see these kids playing, and I see them bonding and helping each other out, and the relationships that they are building, it just fills that warm spot in my heart. I hope that people recognize what these kids are really putting into this, that they are true athletes, and they deserve this opportunity.”