Brief Background Information

Floorball foundation in Nizhny Novgorod region

«Nizhny Novgorod Region Federation of Rinkball, Floorball and Ringette»  —- the first public organization in Nizhny Novgorod promoting the new game of floorball was founded in April 1993. Its president was Bolshakov Sergei. Noticeably, the federation was put together from the «bottom–up». It was founded by enthusiastic and sincerely devoted sport people, who really care for its future in the region. In that same year the Russian Federation of Rinkball and Floorball was founded.

We reregistered our organization, which is a non-profit public business, with the title of «Nizhny Novgorod Floorball Federation». The on–ice types of sport, such as Rinkball and Ringette, are no longer developing, even though our leading teams and players — trained in Nizny Novgorod's sports club «Nizhegorodets»  — took part in the international competitions (Russian – Finnish rinkball league, 1994 World Ringette Championship USA).

NNFF has never received any government funding. None of its staff are on a permanent payroll. Nevertheless, games have been played here since 1993, as well as in other regions and abroad.

In the eleven years of its exstence NNFF members have come to be nationally and internationally reputed as outstanding players.

Our achievements are as follows:

• constant winners of the largest international 1995–1997 tournaments «Gotia Cup» in Sweden;
• recurrent prize–winners at 1994–1998 Czech Republic open tournaments; the 1999 winners among women and juniors;
• the 5th place at the first World Championship for women, Finland, 1997. Trained by Anatoly Bolshakov, all players on that year's national team were from Nizhny Novgorod. The participation was solely at the expense of NNFF;
• winners of national championships, NNFF teams include among their trophies, cups from domestic women's and men's competitions.

In our opinion, in 1997 we reached a new level of development, that entailed problems we had been previously unfamiliar with. At first we felt somewhat puzzled, but encouraged by the experience gained at home as well as abroad, we realized that similar kind of difficulties had been overcome at different times, by our foreign colleagues as well. In 1998 the «Floorball Championship Regulations» were for the first time officially adopted. It was finally edited in 1999. In October 2000 Sergei Bolshakov (NNFF) released a translation of the rules of the game. There were issued software for floorball tournaments.

For the immediate future the Federation has decided to focus on the following main directions of development:

• securing equal rights of all members within the Floorball Federation, which will ensure protection of coaches', and players' rights, thus triggering the growth of the popularity of floorball, of players' skill, of instructors' proficiency, of the level of organization and execution of tournaments;
• establishing contact with sponsors, search of a mutually agreeable form of interaction with them in organizing and executing tournaments.