Team sports
Floorball
Floorball is an indoor stick game that resembles non-skating ice hockey with less body contact. Lightweight equipment supports fast passing, rapid substitutions, and a skill-centered style.
At a glance
- Five outfield players and one goalkeeper are on court.
- Games use three 20-minute periods in the source.
- The goalkeeper plays without a stick.
Player profile. Players combine short acceleration with soft stick control and quick passing. Because the ball is light and the court is enclosed, reading rebounds and closing lanes matter as much as raw speed; goalkeepers work without sticks and use body positioning within the protected area.
Where it happens
Floorball uses a hard indoor court enclosed by low rounded boards, allowing the light perforated ball to stay in play around corners. Small goals and marked goalkeeper areas compress the scoring space, while team benches support rolling substitutions during the game's rapid transitions.
- Common court about 40 m x 20 m; smaller venues may be used.
What you need
- Light plastic-bladed stick
- Perforated plastic ball
- Goalkeeper helmet and padding
- Indoor shoes
How to play
- Outfield players pass and shoot with lightweight sticks while the goalkeeper protects the goal without a stick. Substitutions occur freely and play remains quick.
The essential rules
- Each side fields five outfield players and one goalkeeper.
- Body checking is not allowed.
- The match contains three 20-minute periods.
- Level scores proceed to extra time and penalties in the source format.
- A squad may contain up to 20 players.
- Players may be substituted without stopping play.
- Outfield players strike the ball with the lightweight curved-blade stick.
- The goalkeeper does not carry a stick.
How the result is decided
A goal counts when the ball legally enters the net, and the higher total after the scheduled periods wins. Penalties can remove a player for a timed interval, creating a power play; tied matches proceed through the overtime or penalty method set by the competition.
Fouls and penalties
- High stick
- Stick lifting
- Pushing or body check
- Illegal hand or head contact
- Entering protected crease
Techniques
- Quick wrist passing
- Drag and slap shots
- Ball control with curved blade
- Goalkeeper blocking
Tactics
- Short shifts and rapid substitutions.
- Create passing triangles.
- Press after turnovers.
- Use screens and cross-court passes.
Disciplines and variants
- Small-sided recreational floorball
- Special Olympics floorball
Competition landscape
- World Floorball Championships
- National leagues
Records in the reference
No stable record table is published here. Records change; use the current governing-body source before acting.
How the sport developed
The source presents floorball as a modern indoor stick sport developed with lightweight plastic equipment. Its perforated ball, low boards, limited contact, rolling substitutions, and unarmed goalkeeper produced a fast accessible game related to hockey but adapted to ordinary sports halls.
- The ball's holes reduce weight and influence flight.
Play it in India
Caution · No pathway, recognised federation or public facility for this sport was found in India in KhelPath's current sources. You can learn the sport here; you may not be able to practise it competitively in India today. This is not evidence that the sport is absent from India; it is a gap in current public evidence.
- Organisation reference
- No dated organisation reference found
- Recognition state
- Not established by the current MYAS snapshot
- SAI NCOE discipline rows
- No matching centre row found
- Khelo India discipline
- Not established
- Olympic programme
- Not a current core-programme sport
- India Olympic medals
- No sport-level total in current sources
Evidence and currency
This is an original KhelPath explainer assembled from editorial research. It is orientation, not an authoritative rulebook.
Current governing-body rules link: not yet verified.