Two Colorado Springs brothers behind city’s only floorball game
The sound of clicks and clacks echoes off the field house walls at Colorado Springs Christian Schools.
Ten players and two goalies are busily chasing around a blueberry-colored ball, scooping and flinging it along the gym floor with their sticks, as they aim to shoot their shot past the protectively clad goalies. It’s late on a Wednesday night, but that doesn’t stop these diehard floorball players from getting their fix of the popular Swedish sport.
“It’s hockey without the violence,” said Kelli Baptist, who calls herself a nurse by day and a floorball player by night. She’s played floorball for five years. “We get a lot of hockey crossovers. This is the next best thing. I’m here for the cardio and camaraderie.”
Brothers Richard and Jonas Hedlind are the men behind the stick and ball pastime. After they moved to town from Sweden in the late ‘90s to attend the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, they decided in 2008 to start pick-up, co-ed floorball games after missing the hobby they’d loved since they were children.
They now play every Wednesday and in 2017 added a youth program. Kids 6 and older can take floorball classes an hour before the adults, 16 and older get their game on at 8:30 p.m. Kids’ classes run $10 per session and pick-up games are $12. Both are by drop in.
“It’s easy for anyone to play, to pick it up,” Richard said. “There’s no expensive equipment. It’s easy to get a game going. We used to play on the street — smaller games of three on three and smaller goals or no goalies.”
Each team has five players — three forwards and two defenders — and a goalie. Nobody wears protective gear except the goalies, though some like to wear goggles. The sport is big on safety — there are limitations on how high a player can have their stick when they play the ball and how high they can swing the stick. And there’s no pushing other players and no tackling another player on purpose to get to the ball.
“It’s hockey without the ice, skates and toxic masculinity,” said goalie Trent Kling. He’s played since 2018. “I found this and never went back to hockey. It’s safer than most other sports. I have less injuries now than when I played basketball.”
Attendees play four games, each 18 minutes apiece, and it’s all action, which means it’s good to have extra teammates waiting on the sidelines to step in and relieve the winded players every few minutes.
“See what happens when you play at 54 years old?” joked one player, as he bent over, hands to his knees, working to catch his breath.
Most of the almost 15 players running themselves ragged are men, though Baptist is representing the ladies. Two other women regularly play, but they’re competing in a women’s floorball world championship in Singapore. Richard, as well as almost 10 other Wednesday night players, are also fresh off a national tournament held in San Jose, Calif., where they earned silver.
Though floorball isn’t a commonly played sport in the U.S., about 80 countries love the game. In Sweden it alternates with hockey as the second and third most popular sport. Soccer is always first. Every school has it and there are half a dozen divisions or leagues, including semi-professional. Richard expects it will make it into the Olympics at some point.
He’s also working hard to make a name for the sport in local schools, and was able to entice Academy International Elementary School, which his kids attended, to integrate it into its physical education curriculum as well as make it an after school program. He’s hoping more schools follow suit.
“It’s a lot better than the floor hockey they have in schools now,” he said. “It’s easier. You have a ball and not a puck. The sticks are sturdier.”
The brothers’ floorball game is the only one in town, and Kling would love to see the sport gain in popularity.
“I want to spread the gospel of floorball,” he said. “If more people knew about it, they would get more involved. Once they start playing people don’t stop.”
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Kelli Baptist, Philip Dugan and Chaise Forte (right to left) go for the ball during a weekly floorball game at Colorado Springs Christian Schools High School.
Derek Hanson, left, and Jonas Thelin go for the ball during a weekly floorball game at Colorado Springs Christian Schools High School.
The main equipment used in floorball is a waffle-ball-type ball and a light hockey-like stick, but much lighter.
Jonas Thelin takes a shot on goalie Scott Lange during a weekly floorball game at Colorado Springs Christian Schools High School on Wednesday, Jan. 3.
Jani Kruus drives down from Denver every week, because there are no floorball games in Denver. Kruus is from Finland, originally, where the game is very popular. He takes a shot during a weekly floor ball game at CSCS High School on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. (Photo by Jerilee Bennett, The Gazette)
A makeshift rink is set up with portable panels for games of floorball during the weekly game at CSCS. (Photo by Jerilee Bennett, The Gazette)