The Coach: ”We always talk about Fair Play”

Celebrate The Game has been introduced in the Gothia Innebandy Cup in collaboration with Länsförsäkringar.

Celebrate the Game is a fair play project that Gothia Innebandy Cup runs together with Länsförsäkringar, to create a better environment and a better climate for everyone, on and off the court. ”Coaches are volunteers” is one of Celebrate The Game's important messages.

Stefan Gustavsson is a coach in the Swedish team, Westerviks IBK. His team has just won with 3–0 over IBK Kungälv in the B15-series.
He congratulates his players for the victory but hastly packs the belongings that the players leave behind.
– Many thinks that you spend merely three hours a week in being a coach. But you spend more hours than so. But I’ve played floorball myself and I still think this is fun, says Gustavsson.

The group of players has sticked together since they’re 4–5 years old. And Gustavsson has been there since the beginning. For ten years. From the start up until today. As a volunteer.
– I use to say that it’s like they’re ten per cent my own sons, they really are!
And just like if they’re his own sons, he sincerely cares for the players in the team. Manners and Fair Play are, except for the floorball itself, two of the three most important aspects för him in the dressing room, when practicing and, of course, during the games.
– If I stand and shout, of course the boys and the parents will get in the same mood. It’s really something that we talk a lot about, says the coach.
The work the coaches put in, and by having continuous conversations about manners and Fair Play with the team, has clearly given the wanted effect, says Gustasson.
– The players are calming each other down. That’s what we’ve been saying. It’s the players out on the court that needs to help each other out, he says.