What is "floorball"

n. An indoor ballgame played with a stick like hockey.

Floorball is a type of floor hockey with five field players and a goalkeeper on each team. Men and women play indoors with 96–115.5 cm long sticks and a plastic ball – 22–23 cm in circumference – with holes. Matches are played in three twenty-minute periods.

Developed in the 1960s and 1970s in Sweden, floorball is most popular where it has been developed the longest, such as the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. It is gaining popularity in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and the United States. As of 2014, there are over 300,133 registered floorball players worldwide. Professional leagues include Finland's Salibandyliiga and Sweden's Svenska Superligan.

The sport is organized internationally by the International Floorball Federation (IFF). Events include an annual Euro Floorball Cup for club teams and the biennial World Floorball Championships with separate divisions for men and women. While the IFF contains 58 members, the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland have consistently placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd at the World Floorball Championships.

The sport is relatively new and therefore evolving. The basic rules were established in 1979 when the first floorball club in the world, Sala IBK, was founded in Sweden. Official rules for matches were first written down in 1981.