Gross and Larinovs after the WFC 2016 final. Photo by IFF Flickr.

The Latvian referee pair Martins Gross and Martins Larinovs have refereed together for the past 10 years. They have been whistling around the world and whistled the thriller final Finland vs Sweden in Riga last December. Now they have more exciting matches ahead of them as they’ve been nominated to The World Games.

Your most memorable refereeing moment?
Gross: Our first Men’s WFC final in Riga last December. That was great!
Larinovs: For me it is our first big final: Men’s U19 WFC in 2011 in Weissenfels, Germany.

Weirdest situation that you have faced in a floorball match?
Gross: The weirdest situation happens in Turku during the EFT just a few months ago. I was standing near the rink and the ball was coming towards me and I decided to step over the rink, but I fell down outside the rink. Of course, everyone was happy and laughing about what they saw, that was crazy, but still good memories!
Larinovs: One of the bright memories is when many years ago we refereed a game and the local audience was not happy about some of our decisions. And then only with my side-vision I noticed that a full two-litre Coca-Cola bottle is flying my direction. Luckily, I was quick enough to step back, and the bottle hit the rink.

Most peculiar thing a player has said to you in a floorball match?
Gross: “Hey referee wake up the game is over” even though the match was just about to start, but it was a nice joke.
Larinovs: It was one year ago, so I had already refereed IFF Events for some time, me and my local referee pair were refereeing some low-level Women’s game. The ladies of the loosing team were rude and didn’t play by the rules so we had to whistle some big penalties. After one situation, the goalie turned to me and said “If you don’t know how to referee, maybe you should begin with some small junior matches instead of whistling this kind of match”. I lost my mind.

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