M-Team is a floorball club that operates in Helsinki, the capital of Finland and offers activities from children to the elderly. The club, which was founded in 1996, has more than 250 licensed players, and if you also count the coaches and officials, there are about 500 people. In Finland, M-Team can be considered a medium-sized club. The club's goal is to offer high-quality activities. To achieve this, the club uses MyClub and Qridi Sport software services. MyClub works as a club administration tool and Qridi Sport supports the development of coaches and players. An interface has been built between the systems, which makes everyday life easier.
Coaching manager for M-Team is Antti Niska, who has worked in floorball for over 20 years. His responsibility is mainly the development of junior activities and goal-oriented teams. I interviewed Antti, who shared interesting perspectives on the club's activities and its goals.
When I was young, I tried several different sports, and then actually through the parish floorball group, I became interested in floorball when I was in middle school. At first my team was Stadin Staga and pretty soon then SSV. I feel that my foster club is SSV. The floorball background has been accumulated for more than 20 years. There are also 17 years of coaching. Right after my mandatory army service, I started coaching alongside playing. In 2005, I started my first coaching studies and I am still learning on that path.
We operate in Helsinki surrounded by many values. Perhaps unlike other clubs, we want to raise young people to be good citizens and teach also life values, not just sports skills. Our values very much include quality, community and participation. Participation is very essential - regardless of whether you are a player, administrator or in the role of a parent, we strive to build an experience of participation. Our idea is that everyone has the opportunity to influence and write their own story in the everyday life of our club in their own important role.
I think the problem today is that young people are forced to choose a specific sport hobby too early. However, with children, you can't know which sport interests
them the most when they are older. Versatility is important in hobbies anyway. We have many enthusiasts of two sports, which is of course very common nowadays in other sports as well. We have made the choice not to force a choice of sport for children. We are not going to limit the player's opportunities. For us, the choice of sport is not relevant before the national series, which usually means about 16-year-olds. Although other sports may put pressure on young people to choose a sport, we have decided that children and young people can practice many sports. This is possible when we accept that it is not possible to participate in all practices and games. Of course, it requires skills from the coaches to know how to do quality training for the number of players who are in training. However, we develop athletes in a very comprehensive and goal-oriented manner. I know that in our club you can develop both as a person and as an athlete all the way to the top. This is the work we do and we believe that our approach makes sense for individuals and the club. Our club's coaches are very competent and we are constantly developing our coaching activities.
Qridi Sport serves as a very important tool for us to support learning, monitoring development and giving exercises. In addition, we get good feedback from the players through it. I think this has been a very good reform. It also helps us get to know today's young people better and the things that are important to them.
In terms of athletes' development, it is important that we collect a lot of different data and give athletes personal feedback. Feedback in trainings or games is
often common, but with the help of the tool we get individualized coaching and athlete development. On the other hand, players also learn to know themselves better and their skills develop in a wide range of areas.
At first, we utilized the Qridi coaching application in these themes I mentioned, i.e. athlete-oriented coaching. In the big picture, we also want to make the work of coaches easier with Qridi Sport. We have also liked that Qridi Sport's library already has very good concepts for involving athletes and collecting feedback. They can be activated directly from the library for athletes. These have supported our planning of the season, for example, in the themes of sleep, rest and positive thinking and independent training. At the same time, we make sure that similar entities are available for all teams in accordance with our coaching guideline.
We use MyClub for invoicing, creating events and registering. This has been a really good combination when there is an interface between the systems and they work together. Qridi Sport supports us in coaching and the development of athletes, and on the other hand, MyClub works well for us in support of the club's administration. The movement of information from MyClub to Qridi Sport saves time when the desired information is ready in Qridi Sport.
We will expand the use for the coming season so that the club has a training bank in Qridi Sport. This is to make it easier for coaches to plan training and to guarantee high-quality training for everyone. We have already done the first exercises in the training bank. This will also facilitate the orientation of new coaches and the start of coaching, when there are already exercises to use.
In addition, we are interested in the video tool, because it can use game videos directly as links. We have regular video meetings and use a lot of game videos, so this function helps us.
The Finnish Floorball Association offers some clubs a national team path, which is also called Floorball Academy. As a club, we do not belong to that, but equally our activities must be of high quality and even higher quality. The board of the club noticed that some players had changed to another club that used the Floorball Academy model. We don't think it's right or reasonable that parents of children choose a club based on whether it belongs to the national team path. This is why we joined the activities of Vierumäki Academy. Qridi Sport has a wide range of activities that have also supported our camp activities in Vierumäki. Between short periods and remote periods, we have also been able to make use of giving tasks to the players. Thanks to it, the players have developed a lot on the field, but also off the field.
Interviewer:
Toni Eskola
toni@qridi.fi
Pictures and more information about M-Team Floorball activities:
Antti Niska
Coaching Manager
antti.niska@m-team.fi
https://www.m-team.fi/