Just a Gwai Lo fun within prescribed limits [?]

Last night was the third night of floorball at Mulgrave School in West Vancouver, where as usual we had 20 minutes of drills and warmup and played what seemed like an unending game. I got one or two assists, depending on how you define assist. (Is it like hockey where if you set up the guy who gets the first assist, you also get an assist?) I didn't score, but came close 3 times, and was really happy about the chances, as I had just the right amount of patience and was open for just long enough to turn around and take a shot. The first shot went off the cross-bar (almost perfect placement!) and another sailed past the post.

(Last week, just to keep track, I scored a goal and got one assist.)

Last night floorball started back up again at Mulgrave School in West Vancouver, this time with a twist on the original drop-ins I was participating in earlier in the year. Now they have full session sign-ups, and each drop-in begins with 15-20 minutes of drills. Perfect! I'm still a floorball newbie, and having some practice time with long-time players watching over should add some polish to my very rough floor hockey edges. Starting with last night's games' two goals and one assist, I'm keeping track of my points so that I can look back and see how I did over a "season".

The BC Floorball Federation is also organizing a Vancouver floorball league, which declared its opening night's success. They're also organizing a youth floorball program for 12-14 year olds so that they can learn the basics of the game at a time when they're just starting to get serious about sports. Congratulations are due to the BC Floorball Federation on the growth of the sport in the Lower Mainland: as far as I can tell, they're very serious about using all the tools to market the sport to British Columbians, using newspapers and online social networking tools like blogging (all the links here are to their blog) and other applications like Facebook.

Readers of Urban Vancouver know that I've been playing floorball, a type of floor hockey with modifications like shorter sticks with golf club-like grips, a whiffle ball, with rules that emphasize stickhandling and playmaking over physical toughness. I'd only heard about the sport a few months ago, but the people are really friendly and encouraging, and though play is a little more 'lower-body' than I anticipated, it's a nice compliment to the primarily 'upper-body' sport of dragon boating.

After the BC Federation Floorball challenge a few weeks ago, I was getting a little discouraged with goal-scoring, but after last night's play, scoring on the final play of the final game, and feeling a lot better about my defensive play, I've gotten over any doubts I might have had about enjoying floorball. One of the organizers noticed an increase in velocity on my shot—though we'll see how accurate I am under pressure—and going the almost the whole night without water makes me wonder if my fluid intake is way more than it needs to be.