On a business trip to Sweden six years ago, North Vancouver's Greg Beaudin had the path of his life altered by none other than former Swedish hockey superstar Brje Salming.
Salming placed a stick into Beaudin's hands, but it was a stick unlike anything he had ever seen. It had a comfortable, golf club-like grip for the top hand that lead into a thin, carbon composite shaft. A hard plastic blade, slotted and vented to allow air to pass through, was attached on the end. The whole thing weighed less than a smallish grapefruit and its height was just slightly above the belly button. For Beaudin, a hockey nut very familiar with the splintered wood of street hockey or the clunky plastic of floor hockey, it was a revelation.
"It felt like magic in my hands," he says as he recalls the first moment he touched a floorball stick. Salming dropped a hard plastic ball with holes in it - much like a whiffle ball - at Beaudin's feet. "When I took my first snapshot it just kind of released from the wrist and hit the crossbar at probably around 100 miles per hour. I was like, 'Holy! This stick is loaded!'"
Since that day Beaudin has spent countless hours trying to bring the sport of floorball to Canada. He's had a lot of success too. Check the North Shore News Focus section or look online this Sunday to find out what he's been up to and how far the sport has come since then.
