The top players representing Canada, India and USA will travel to the beautiful host city of Budapest to challenge athletes from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia at the U20 and U18 WJC June 26-29.

The schedule will be released shortly before the tournament as confirmations are awaited from other European nations.

More news to follow.

The eyes of the ball and dek hockey world will be in Hungary next October for the Master’s Over 40 World Championships and in the United States of America next September for the North American Masters Championships and the World Ball Hockey Federation (WBHF) welcomes its member nations and teams to 'The Masters'.

‘The Masters’ will be offering three divisions of play:

Europe - Men’s Over 40 (exception two players 38 years of age and older)

USA – Men’s & Women’s Over 35

Both Europe and USA have been known for visitors to have good fortune and wonderful memories and ‘The Masters’ will be no different as the city welcomes the ball hockey world. Those new to the cities will appreciate the beauty of each which will make the tournaments even more enjoyable.

Each city has the trendy bars & nightclubs, educational museums, delicious restaurants and much more. The tournaments will welcome the best Master’s age players which will have world-wide interest in the tournament.

The teams, their fans and the ball hockey world will enjoy the hospitality, new friendships and life long memories as the sport unites the world.

We look forward to working with the USA Dek Hockey and Hungary Ball Hockey Associations and look forward to meeting the teams, families as the ball hockey community comes together at ‘The Masters’, World Master’s Championships.

Domenic Di Gironimo
World Ball Hockey Federation President

What does it mean for your players to go to Toronto Canada for the WC?
It means a lot to participate in a WC, for every athlete, as well for our ball hockey players. Between the 2 world championships, men and women, the players are preparing, training, struggling in the league to show the coaches that they deserve to have a place on the national team.

What training are you making with your players to be prepared for the challenge?
Most of the players are part of other sports like field hockey, floorball, ice hockey, which gives them the right condition; they can join the preparation at a later stage. Fortunately there are already some players with ball hockey as their major sport; they prepare the whole year. The national team will regularly meet from the middle of March on a weekly basis to prepare for Toronto. We are planning to organize friendly matches with Slovakian teams and we would like to invite the Slovakian team to Szekesfehervar which would be not only good for preparation but this would also to promote the sport.

How many players will you bring for the men and for the women's teams?
The high costs have unfortunately a big impact on our possibilities. We are planning to have 18-22 players per team at both, the Men's and the Women's WC. At the Women's WC we would like to surprise everyone, which would mean even the possibility to win a medal. We would like to bring a much stronger men's team than we did in Bratislava in 2011.

Do you hope for some local fan support of Hungarians in Canada?
A lot of Hungarians live in Canada, mostly in Toronto. We will definitely look for the Hungarian community there, to gain their support for the WC.

Is the sport growing in Hungary?
Ball hockey started in 2011 in Hungary. At that time 6 male and 3 female teams participated in the Hungarian Cup. In 2012 we had already 9 men and 4 women teams and the number of players increased as well. We organized the national league from May till September. In the national league we had more than 200 players this year.

What are the goals for Hungary for the next five years? Maybe hosting a WBHF event in future?
Our main goal is to promote ball hockey in Hungary. To be able to become an official sport association, we need 3 finished national leagues, at least 10 official clubs and 150 registered players, according to the Hungarian law. The third national league will be finished in 2013. Not all of the clubs are officially registered yet, they have to correct this, but we have enough players.

From 2013 we will start the "little ball hockey" (4v4). We expect from this, that the ball hockey would be played all year long and smaller teams could join the system.

We are planning to organize the first junior national league in 2013 (U18 and U14).

We would like to expand the season, from the current 4 months to 7-8 months.

We are interested in connecting with the neighboring countries, with Serbia, Austria and we would like to expand our good relationship with Slovakia.

We are hoping that in 2015 we can have 2 leagues for the men and we also hope that the women league will be stronger with more teams, and also that we can regularly organize the junior league.

Our national team will participate in all WBHF events! Our aim is to get the chance to organize a WBHF event. The European Championships, which was promised to us in 2003 by ISBHF, but was cancelled during the congress in February - a big disappointment for us. We lost some supporters, but we would like to prove to the international ball hockey society that we can organize a WBHF event. It would be a great chance to promote ball hockey in Hungary.

HKL-Petržalka MJM won the Hungary Cup international championship in Budapest, dominating the tournament with a masterful performance out scoring opponents by an aggregate of 45:1.  The only goal conceded in the final against Dózsa Újpest of Hungary.  In a celebration match at the end of the tournament HKL-MJM showed tremendous class in its 1:0 defeat of the Hungarian national team, expected to compete in the B-Pool of the 2013 WBHF World Championship.