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June 8th, 2009 
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| With summer right around the corner, the flag football excitement is likely to heat up. Across the nation and overseas, in divisions of all ages and genders, major tournaments are preparing to kick off. But during the weekend of June 27-28, one tournament will feature international competition between some of the most serious players in the world: the IWFFA Tournament in Oslo, Norway. |
This will be the 10th year in which the International Women’s Flag Football Association has held an international tournament in Oslo. The venue is small by comparison as the attendance is not expected to exceed eight teams, but the high quality of play will more than make up for the low quantity of teams. The IWFFA introduced flag football in Scandinavia in 1997, and the sport has been spreading there ever since, from Denmark to Norway to Sweden to Iceland. Naturally, the ability of the players has been increasing with the league’s growth. The president and founder of the IWFFA, Diane Beruldsen, knows that each and every one of the teams treasures “the luxury to compete against other teams, which heightens their level of skill, especially as a team.”
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The U.S. representative in the tournament, the Blue Thunder, has enjoyed this luxury for some time as it has its own league and is thus more experienced than its international competition. Beruldsen points out that on the Scandinavian teams, “the most experienced players started roughly 12 years ago – never seeing the game of tackle football.” But despite a clear edge in experience, the U.S. is not the only favorite at the Oslo tournament. The F Fighters, composed of both Finnish and Norwegian players, won the most recent Scandinavian tournament in Sweden and are still considered to be on the rise. And the tournament’s home team, the Oslo Panthers, can never be counted out either, as they have dominated the Scandinavian championship countless times in recent memory. It should be intriguing to see which women step up big and emerge victorious in what is sure to be an intense competition on an international stage. The globalization of flag football starts with leagues just like this one, so fans of the game should not discount the overall importance of this tournament, one of two that the IWFFA will host this summer. Picture Sources (in order shown):
1. http://wfbtalk.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/iwffa-new-colors-jpeg.jpg
2. http://www.playflag.com/iwffa/images/iwffa/kw07one.jpg
3. http://www.eteamz.com/BlueThunderFlagFootball/images/TeamPhotoSpring2005.jpg
4. http://iwffa.com/index_files/swe07ffighters.jpg
5. http://iwffa.com/nor07panthers.jpg |
