Today during the second intermission of the Women’s World Floorball Championship final in Uppsala, the IFF published the first ten players that were inducted into the recently created IFF Hall of Fame.
The first two periods of the hard fought final were a suitable setting for announcing the historical first inductees. The list of players, and one coach, was product of the work of the Selection Committee. The committee had worked through autumn based on a list of nominations from national federations consisting of players from three different decades: 1990-99 / 2000-2009 / 2010-21. It was outlined by the IFF Central Board that six players (3 men / 3 women) from each decade were to be inducted and the inductees were decided by a majority vote by the Selection Committee.
The ceremonies for the day came in two parts. The awards were handed out earlier during the day in a more intimate procedure in the IFU Arena VIP lounge. The awards were handed out by the IFF President Tomas Eriksson and Secretary General John Liljelund.
– Since the IFF celebrated its 35th birthday in April this year it became apparent that there already are impressive and noteworthy international careers in floorball. So it felt appropriate to launch this concept and project to honour these achievements. I think this also portrays that floorball as a sport has this way reached yet another plateau that is expected from professionally run central federations, explains IFF President Tomas Eriksson.
The official publication in during the second intermission of the final started with a display of a tribute video of the inductees. At the same time the design of the IFF Hall of Fame became public. All inductees were introduced to the public on the field of play where they also received flower bouquets and a huge applause from the IFU Arena spectators.
The players inducted to the IFF Hall of Fame are:
- Karolina Widar (player), Sweden
- Martin Olofsson (player), Sweden
- Laura Tomatis (player), Switzerland
- Jan-Erik Vaara (coach), Sweden
- Mirca Anderegg (player), Switzerland
- Niklas Jihde (player), Sweden
- Simone Berner (player), Switzerland
- Hermine Dahlerus (player), Sweden
- Jill Quek (player), Singapore
- Åsa Karlsson (player), Sweden
It was decided by the IFF to award all Swedish players in Uppsala in front of their home crowd. Further players will be inducted during the Men’s World Floorball Championships in Helsinki next week.
– Floorball has a glorious history and it´s a very good thing that IFF now has founded the Hall of Fame. We are proud to host the release of the Hall of Fame during the World Floorball Championships in Uppsala, it adds something extra to the tournament´s last day, stated Mikael Ahlerup, Secretary General of the Swedish Floorball Federation
The awards that were handed to the inductees were produced by ifolor. The IFF Hall of Fame design and inductee names were printed on an aluminium plaque (20x30cm).
