AI Olympic Floorball
(a.k.a. Unihoc, Innebandy)

Tue, Jan 27th, 2:00pm, at the Johnson Athletic Center inside the indoor track

Last updated 1998.01.25

Welcome to a new AI Olympic Sport for 1998! Floorball is an aerobic sport similar to an indoor version of field hockey or floor hockey. It is played with lightweight plastic ball and sticks, small goals; unlike hockey there are no skates, no pads, no checking --- it's designed to be non-violent. There's also no goal-tending, so there may by more scoring, and unlimited substitutions keeps the game moving.

As an unfamiliar sport, it challeges the AI Olympic teams to learn together what works. However, experience with hockey, soccer, basketball, or similar sports may come in handy for stick handling and passing tactics. Participation counts for your team, so come try it out even if you can't stay the entire time.

Play

Play starts at the center of the field at the beginning and after each goal. Players on the team controlling the ball maneuver it into their opponents' end and try to shoot it into the small (1-meter wide) goal. Players control the ball with their stick; they may block the ball with other parts of the body, but may not kick it, hit it, head it, etc. Passing is important, more so for the most of us who are new to the game.

To keep the game safe and non-violent, there are several restrictions, the most important of which are:

Violations result in stopping play and turning the ball over to the other team, who restarts play from that point. We will be playing without referrees, so players call out fouls. To keep scoring continuous (as in basketball), there is an area in front of the goal called the "crease". Violations by the offense result in turning the ball over as above. Violations by the defense result in a penalty shot: the defending team must be behind the goal, and a player from the offense hits the ball once from midfield at the goal. If the ball misses, play continues normally when it reaches the defenders.

When Floorball is played in an enclosed area there is no out-of-bounds and play is continuous unless the ball becomes inaccessable, in which case the team who didn't knock it out hits it in from the edge of the play area. However, inside the indoor track we don't have walls so play will stop when the ball leaves the designated bounds --- in particular, do not go running into the curtains, as there may be runners on the other side.

Substitutions are unlimited and can occur at any time (as in hockey) as long as the player that is coming out is off the "field" before the new player enters.

For more information, the Caltech Floorball Club has some nice informative pages (with the above images):

AI Olympic Team competition

Unihoc is an aerobic sport, and in this spirit we will keep play moving (so participation for substitutions is important). We will be playing a round robin tournament with two simultaneous games at all times, so all four teams will be playing all the time, and no team will have to wait around for other games to be played.

We will be playing with 4 players per team on the field at a time.

We will be playing without referees.

The team with the most goals wins the game. Games will terminate at the ending time regardless of starting time. If there is a tie at that time, the next goal wins.

TimeSouth End (inside Indoor track) North End (inside Indoor track)
14:15-14:40Lion Tamers vs. Naked Mole Rats Crazed Roboticists vs. Topiary Gardeners
14:45-15:10Lion Tamers vs. Crazed Roboticists Naked Mole Rats vs. Topiary Gardeners
15:15-15:40Lion Tamers vs. Topiary Gardeners Naked Mole Rats vs. Crazed Roboticists
The tournament placement will be figured as follows: The team with the best round-robin record will get 5 tournament points (not to be confused with game points or olympic points). The next team will receive 3 tournament points and the last two teams will receive 2 and 1 points respectively. For each player on a team who participates (plays the ball in at least one game), that team receives an additional 0.5 tournament points.

As always, olympic points will be distributed based on tournament points: 5 olympic points to the team with the most tournament points, 3 olympic points for 2nd place, 2 olympic points for 3rd place, and 1 olympic point for 4th place.

Floorball/Unihoc at MIT

InneBandy (Indoor Bandy) was invented in Sweden, and has spread under many names: Salibandy, Floorball (the official non-trademarked English name), Unihoc (the name of one of the equipment vendors whose name appears on the sticks). InneBandy arrived in America at MIT in the early 90's, and the MIT Unihoc club held the first tournament in North America. MIT has one of the largest clubs in the US, and we thank them for loaning us their equipment. If you enjoy this sport, you may consider trying some MIT Unihoc club pickup games, Tue & Thu 7:30--9:30pm, and Sun 4:00--6:00pm at the DuPont basketball courts.

caroma@ai.mit.edu (Carl Manning)
Thanks to Raquel Romano for the original idea.