A junior floorball team Shanghai LZD Floorball from Shanghai, China has travelled to Finland in order to learn more about the sport.

An empty rink at Myllypuro Arena Center in Helsinki, Finland on a Monday morning. It’s 10 AM and two eager boys are already waiting beside the rink for the practice to start. But these boys are not from Finland. Philip Ma and Roger Wang are from Shanghai, China:
– We came to Finland to play floorball with the Finnish kids.

A group of 24 twelve- to fourteen-year-old boys and girls have travelled from Shanghai to enjoy floorball in Finland, where the sport is more known than in China. The group arrived a few days ago and have already played and practiced with different Finnish teams:
– Our plan is to play approximately seven days during our stay here. We are also going to Norway, says Mikko Kuitunen the group´s Finnish contact person and continues:
– Our goal is to practice a lot with different teams and coaches in order to see how the sport is played and practiced in Finland.

Finland is one of the top four countries in floorball, but that wasn’t the only reason why the team chose the land of a thousand lakes as their destination:
– The reputation of Finland in both floorball and in general were among the reasons why we chose to come here. We also want to start working with the intellectually disabled back in China and Finland has been doing a great job in that. They even won the Special Olympics pre-games that were held in Latvia earlier this year. We are meeting them tomorrow, says Kuitunen who himself is originally from Finland. This helped the team while planning the trip:
– The whole journey was basically planned according to the connections I have in Finland.

The trip was organised by Dr. Jing Yan, who stated that they had been planning this trip for a while now:
– The main purpose of the trip was to meet with the IFF Secretary General John Liljelund and talk about the process of developing floorball in China.
Some of the players also took part in the meeting due to their interest and previous promotion of floorball:
– The team LZD floorball was set up by several kids two years ago. The initiators of LZD are six kids who  love to play floorball. They are volunteers who have been promoting floorball in different schools in Shanghai in order to play with more kids. They worked hard in order to promote floorball in school, says Dr. Yan.

Today’s morning practice was run by the IFF Secretary General John Liljelund. At the end of the practice he stated that even playing with the ball for five minutes daily between homework will improve the players´ skills. Kuitunen is familiar with the time problem:
– One of the kids asked me ‘Why are we not as good as the Finns?’. I had to explain to him that the Finns practice a lot more. Groups of the same age category practice in Finland three times a week, whereas this group practices once a week, sometimes even once every two weeks. The thing is that usually when the kids are done with their homework, it’s already 10 o’clock in the evening. It’s rough.

Kuitunen isn’t the only adult travelling with the team. A few coaches and parents have also joined the group. One of the parents is Yong Yuan who tells more about the practicing culture in China:
– The team has been together for less than two years and they practice approximately once a week. The children in the team are all from the best schools in Shanghai.
Yuan states that parents play a big role in children’s hobbies:
– The support of the parents is crucial in China. Many parents want their children to be focusing on only studying. Sports are important for the children’s development and luckily more parents are starting to see that and the situation is getting better.
Yuan himself is working for the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology:
– We provide a sports hall for free, which makes the costs lower. All in all, there are roughly 20 Universities that offer floorball courses.

Yong Yuan’s daughter Cindy is part of the team. She used to be a field player but decided to try goalkeeping:
– The trip so far has been great. I have learned a lot about goalkeeping and I really wish to continue improving my skills and make friends with the Finnish people at the same time.

The team from Shanghai is playing a tournament together with Finnish junior teams in Arena Center Myllypuro in Helsinki, Finland this Sunday. In case you are nearby, you can go and watch them play between 9 AM and 5 PM.