Floorball Line Changes on the Fly
A 4-on-4 floorball game in which each team has three lines that sub in and out in short shifts through a marked change zone without stopping play. Students work on high-intensity intervals, team organization, and decision-making.
How to play
- Set up a 30 x 15 m (about 100 x 50 ft) court with two small goals and use cones on one sideline to mark a 5 m change zone for each team.
- Form two teams of 12 in pinnies, split into three lines of four; each line knows its order.
- Play 4-on-4 with no set goalie; each shift lasts about 45 seconds, and a student with a stopwatch claps to signal the change.
- Changes happen on the fly: the player leaving must be inside the change zone before the new player steps onto the court; if both are on at once, it is a foul and the other team gets a free hit.
- Play three 6-minute periods. In the last one, each line decides when to change, but no shift may last longer than 1 minute.
Rules
- The stick never goes above the waist, on the swing or the follow-through.
- Changes only through the marked zone, never jumping over the sideline.
- No contact: play the ball with the stick, not with the body.
Variations
Easier
Changes happen with play stopped every minute, on the teacher's clap.
Standard
On-the-fly changes every 45 seconds through the change zone.
Harder
Free changes with a 1-minute maximum and a double-point goal if scored within 10 seconds of a clean change.
Adaptations
- A student with limited mobility can run the stopwatch and the change zone, or play with a stick in a protected area in front of their goal.
- For students who are deaf or hard of hearing, signal changes by raising a colored cone instead of clapping.
- Students with lower fitness can play 30-second shifts and fill in for any line that needs a player.
Learning goals
- Sustain high intensity during short shifts.
- Coordinate changes without losing team shape.
- Connect the length of an effort to the quality of decisions.
Equipment for a class of 25
- Floorball sticks: 26
- Floorball balls: 4
- Small goals: 2
- Pinnies: 12
- Cones: 8
- Stopwatch: 1
Teacher tip
Expect chaos at first; insist that the player leaving calls out and exits on their own zone's side.
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