Broomball Canada''

formerly the Canadian Broomball Federation (CBF), is the official governing body of the sport of

broomball Broomball is a both a recreational and organized competitive winter team sport played on ice or snow and is played either indoors or outdoors, depending on climate and location. It is a ball sport and is most popularly played in Canada and the ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The role of the organization is to provide leadership by promoting and developing broomball and developing and coordinating programs and services designed to meet the needs of the broomball community. The philosophy of the Broomball Canada places the

athlete An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance. Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-devel ...

at the heart of the organization. The annual Canadian membership is around 19,000 registered players with another 15,000 who participate at the recreational level which includes all age groups and schooling levels including

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

. The Canadian national broomball teams have competed in every

World Broomball Championships The World Broomball Championships (WBC) is the premiere international competition for the sport of broomball and is organized and administered by the International Federation of Broomball Associations (IFBA). The competition is organized every e ...

since its inception.

Competitive categories

Broomball Canada has four main competitive categories to classify the different sports levels and divisions that are available to all ages.

History

The exact origin of the sport has been difficult to pin point. Broomball can be traced back to the early 1900s. The sport was played on icy surfaces about the size of today's

hockey rink An ice hockey rink is an ice rink that is specifically designed for ice hockey, a competitive team sport. Alternatively it is used for other sports such as broomball, ringette, rinkball, and rink bandy. It is a rectangle with rounded corners and s ...

s, surfaces such as lakes, ponds and rivers. The

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

peoples are believed to have passed the sport on to the

settler A settler is a person who has human migration, migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a ...

s. In 1961, the

Fitness and Amateur Sport Act Fitness may refer to: * Physical fitness, a state of health and well-being of the body * Fitness (biology), an individual's ability to propagate its genes * Fitness (cereal), a brand of breakfast cereals and granola bars * ''Fitness'' (magazine) ...

came into force in Canada whereby the Government of Canada made an official commitment to “encourage, promote and develop fitness and amateur sport in Canada.” A few years later, the Canadian government created two new directorates: Recreation Canada, which was tasked with improving the lifestyle of Canadians, and

Sport Canada Sport Canada is a branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage that develops federal sport policy in Canada, provides funding programs in support of sport, and administers special projects related to sport. Its mission "to enhance opportunities ...

, which was responsible for developing competitive sport. The predecessor to Broomball Canada, the Canadian Broomball Federation, was founded in 1976, roughly 10 years after the enactment of the Fitness and Amateur Sport Act. During the 1975 "national broomball tournament" in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

it was decided that the sport needed a

governing body A governing body is a group of people that has the authority to exercise governance over an organization or political entity. The most formal is a government, a body whose sole responsibility and authority is to make binding decisions in a taken ge ...

. The members of the

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

Broomball

Association Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

met with representatives of other

Canadian provinces Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

and formed what became the Canadian Broomball Federation. In the 1980s, the organization developed the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) to focus on Canadian youth in the sport.

Current status

Over the past half decade the sport has seen a great decline in participation, evidence of which can be seen in all age categories and levels of competition. Schools are showing less team development in both elementary and high schools in every Canadian province. At the Canadian Broomball Championships (CBC) there are fewer provinces participating. Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia/New Brunswick (together as Maritimes) currently hold the sport together. The remaining provinces, Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia, were once big players in the sport but have taken a step back. The lack of participation has been blamed on lack of leadership at the higher levels of the sport. Additionally, a lack of general awareness and knowledge of the sport in schools across Canada is considered to be another contributing factor. Adding to the problem is that broomball is sometimes confused with

ringette Ringette is a contact sport, non-contact winter team sport played on ice hockey rinks using Ice skates#Ice hockey skates, ice hockey skates, straight sticks with drag-tips, and a #Equipment, blue, rubber, pneumatic ring designed for use on ice ...

and

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...

. Parents tend to sign their children up for mainstream sports such as

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

. Although broomball is more well known in rural areas, it lacks funding to become more popular and achieve growth in urban areas.

Provincial Associations

Broomball Canada executives

National Championship results

Senior Men's

Senior Women's

Mixed

U20 Boy's

U20 Girl's

Funding

Broomball is recognized as one of the first 6 Canadian heritage sports and thus receives funding from

Heritage Canada The National Trust for Canada (french: La Fiducie nationale du Canada; formerly known as the Heritage Canada Foundation) is a national registered charity in Canada with the mandate to inspire and lead action to save historic places, and promot ...

to the amount of $105,000. The funding is meant to develop and build the sport as it receives little sponsorship from companies, the remaining income to the sport is from membership fees and workshops. To continue to receive funding from Heritage Canada, the broomball federation must continue to actively seek sponsorship from corporate sponsors. While the sport is strongly supported by Heritage Canada it would prefer to reduce dependency in order to more readily finance other initiatives.

References

{{Authority control Broomball