Photo by Salibandyliiga Flickr.

The Finnish referee pair Mikko Alakare and Vesa Vilkki are familiar faces in the international refereeing scene. They have been seen for example in several Men’s WFCs as well as in the Champions Cup. They started their joint referee journey in 2006, though they had whistled some matches together even before that.

Your most memorable refereeing moment?
Mikko: Plenty of them. Possibly first game in the Men’s WFC, WFC Final in 2004 or some other significant international match in front of full arenas such as any of the WFC semi-finals in o2 Arena, Riga Arena or Hartwall Arena.
Vesa: Many memorable moments starting from the very first game ever to some really big games including league finals, WFC semi-finals etc.

Weirdest situation that you have faced in a floorball match?
Mikko: Refereeing a match between two nations that are at a state of war. I think it was in 2008 when I refereed a match between Georgia and Russia in the U19 Qualifications when they had a border conflict.
Vesa: During AOFC Qualification in Singapore it was just too hot to play and the match needed to be interrupted to sweep the whole floor dry again in order to have safe playing conditions.

Most peculiar thing a player has said to you in a floorball match?
Mikko: Player: “You are bad!” Me: “Why?” Player: “I have no idea, you just are bad”
Vesa: Lots of weird statements during the years – most of them not worth repeating. And after all you don’t really remember what somebody has said.

The World Games will be played in Wroclaw, Poland 20th-30th of July. The Floorball competition will be held over 4 days, from 27th – 30th July, and will involve 6 men´s teams divided into two groups of 3. Group A consists of Finland, Czech Republic and Poland and Group B consists of Sweden, Switzerland and USA.

More information about The World Games can be found here: www.floorball.org/pages/EN/World-Games-2017