Catching the floorball fever by Nick Heffernan
Mats Sundin grew up playing floorball. Maple Leafs teammate Alex Steen was still playing floorball after he turned pro.
And the Leafs' other Swede -- defenceman Anton Stralman? Yeah, he's a floorball disciple, too.
That'sfloorball, as in floor hockey, with a couple of Scandinavian twists --a sport which has caught fire in Europe and is rapidly making inroadsin Canada and the United States.
Nextweekend, York University will play host to the Canada Cup, the biggestfloorball tournament in North America, with 39 teams and 600 playersfrom around the world.
That's just afraction of the 3,900 club teams and 300,000 players registered withthe International Floorball Federation, which is lobbying the IOC toinclude the sport in the 2020 Olympics.
Finland's Juha Mikkola can take a lot of credit for developing the sport in Canada.