May I present you to the greatest non-official sport in the world: Ice-ball.

Played by referees all over the world during IIHF tournaments, referee training and development camps and national and international referee educational weekends, the game of ice-ball has surprisingly few rules.

How to play:

- Divide all available people into two teams. Doesnt really matter how many players, but more is better and there are no substitutes. Everybody plays.
- Ice-ball is played with a ball, and two nets.
- There's no official goalie, but anyone can protect their net.
- The goal is to score with the ball in the other teams net.
- Players are allowed to glide, but not skate/make strides while holding the ball.
- Hitting / body contact is not allowed.
- If you drop the ball, you're not allowed to pick it up (a team member is)
- You can not move the ball behind your own net more than two times in the same phase of possession

Julian learned the game when he was invited to speak at a Swiss referee day about the way players would like referees to communicate with them. He instantly fell in love with Ice-ball and tries to get his team to join in a game at the end of practice all the time.

While the game is all about fun and team building, it also develops skills such as skating and positioning, as well as offensive and defensive read. Therefore it is a great addition to any hockey practice on a regular basis and everyone should be playing it all the time.