Broomballers hit the road for ‘Northern Championship’

• Homer team travels to Whitehorse for competition

By Catriona Lowe
Special to the Homer Tribune
Dan Deschamps bounds onto the ice, blowing a whistle as he slides to a stop.
“OK, we’re going to work on defense tonight,” he says, rounding up his team of broomballers.
An intense hour of drills commences, with members of the Duggan’s Pub Homer Broomball team enthusiastically hurtling across the rink. This has not been the standard for Homer Broomball practices in the three years since its inception, and during the first “Whitehorse practice,” it took me by surprise. Until now, the typical warm-up consisted of whacking shots in the general direction of the goal for a few minutes, while the stragglers finished in the locker room. Then, we launched directly into games.
Broomball activities around Homer are sliding to a whole new level with this year’s decision to send a local team to compete in the inaugural Bob Park Northern Broomball Championship in Whitehorse.
In early 2009, Deschamps said he initially considered having the Homer team compete in tournaments as far afield as Minnesota and Vancouver. It quickly became apparent, however, that the travel costs were prohibitive.
Next, Deschamps thought, “Where could we drive to?”
Whitehorse entered the picture.
It certainly seemed possible, especially since “they play a lot of broomball there,” according to Deschamps.

It turns out, the Yukon and Northwest Territories Broomball Associations traditionally hold a local tournament at the start of the season – and they had always dreamed of expanding it. The result is the Northern Broomball Championship.
Seven Yukon teams, two from the Northwest Territories and one from Anchorage are also participating. Teams are guaranteed four games in this co-ed tournament, and the intention is that the championship will be held biennially. Plans are to have Yellowknife host the tournament in 2011, and Homer in 2013.
Both the Yukon and Northwest Territories have well-established broomball teams with decades of experience, forcing Homer to adopt the ramped-up training program.
Several Homer team members are newcomers to the strategies of playing organized team sports, making for an intense – and relatively steep – learning curve. Others are working at perfecting the unique set of skills involved in a game based on running around on the ice.
The 14 players from Homer will head north in two rental vans Nov. 12. An overnight stop in Tok allows for a practice and demonstration game at the new Tok Ice Arena. Homer’s first game in Whitehorse is on Friday night against one of the Yukon teams.
Chip Duggan, who played broomball in Homer in 2006, is sponsoring the team, and the Kevin Bell Arena and Homer Broomball Association also assisted by providing some additional ice time for practices. 
The 2009-10 broomball season is well underway at Kevin Bell Arena, with pick-up games continuing once or twice a week. Excitement builds as the league season is about to begin, and broomball shoes and equipment are now available at Homers’ Jeans. Even better, profit from these sales will be donated to Homer Hockey Association.
A fundraising event – including a costume contest, games and live music by Anchorage band, “The 11:20s” – will get underway around 10 p.m. Halloween at The Down East Saloon.
For more info. on broomball, e-mail homerbroomball@gmail.com. Game schedules are also available by calling 235-8ICE.

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Posted by Newsroom on Oct 28th, 2009 and filed under Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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