The 2025 National Broomball Championships has kicked off in Nova Scotia.
“It feels amazing. It’s really cool to come and experience other parts of the country because I haven’t been here before so it’s nice to represent Ontario coming to a different province,” said participant Ashley Harvey.
Broomball – best described as a combination of hockey, lacrosse and soccer – is played on ice in shoes, not skates.
“It is a beautiful sport. The people who play it, love it. The people who don’t, don’t even know it exists,” said Chad Schneider, president of Broomball Canada. “We have the most teams ever at this tournament with 32. It’s the largest one we’ve ever done.
“We were able to get four Maritime teams participating. We got a couple of teams from Newfoundland as well that normally don’t participate because the cost is so high.”
This tournament sees four divisions – Senior Men’s, Senior Women’s, Mixed and Men’s Masters – playing at the GLF Newport Recreation Centre and West Hants Sports Complex.
“It’s so nice to be with the team and see, like, a part of the world, and just to see how much how it’s in Canada because you only see it in Ontario. And so being able to experience on a national level is amazing,” said Harvey.
Her local rink in Ontario put a team together last year for the mixed tournament, and this is her first Nationals experience.
In her morning game against NL Storm, Harvey won MVP for her team the Clearview Brewers.
The sport has roots in Nova Scotia, with Windsor taking claim of the booming industry back in the day.
“Here in Windsor and West Hants, we were the hot bed of broomball all through the 1980s, 1990s, it was huge here,” said Darrell Lyttle, the 2025 host chairperson. “And it’s kind of dying a little bit, but we thought by bringing the event here, we hope to get a little bit of, you know, uptick on getting people excited, and we already feel that.”
Having the games spread between two venues also brings an increase in tourism profits, with most hotels booked in the region, even spanning into Bedford.
“It’s just been an honour to be able to host a hearing which has our little small community to have 650-plus athletes and coaches and trainers and managers come here for five days,” said Lyttle.
The community is happy to have the game in their backyard.
“They’re so happy to have us here and we’re happy to be here. We want to promote our sport,” said Schneider.
“It’s incredible. We’re running with over 100 volunteers from the community,” said Lyttle. “So you start at seven in the morning. We go to 11 at night. There are 111 games over five days. It’s pretty exciting.”
“We want it to grow. We want more teams from the east, from the Atlantic provinces to start playing it. It’s heavily focused in Quebec and Ontario and Saskatchewan where I’m from,” said Schneider.
“I’m telling you right now, when you try it, you fall in love and you’re hooked for life.”
For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
