​A portable bocce court from Packaworld will help set the stage for four days of sport, joy and cultural immersion as part of the Special Olympics World Games’ Host Town Programme in Bamberg, Germany.

Bamberg will host athletes from Bahrain in June as part of the nationwide Host Town Programme, helping them acclimatise and sharpen their skills for the supreme challenge of the Special Olympics World Games in Berlin from 17 to 25 June. 

​​The Packabocce court being used for bocce training and events in Bamberg is the same model as the courts athletes will compete on at this year’s World Games, allowing locals and visitors to get a taste of ‘the World Games experience’ ahead of the main event.

The Paralympic sport of goalball has rolled into the University of Minnesota’s sports facilities in a big way, with two new inflatable Goalball Packagoals helping to ignite a passion for the sport on campus.

“It’s still in its infancy but the participation and excitement from the visually impaired community here on campus has been fantastic,” said Jaime Medina, the university’s Assistant Director of Intramural Sports.

“Goalball this year has really taken off."

Medina says goalball fever began to take hold on campus in October 2022, when the university began open gym goalball sessions on Saturday afternoons roughly every other weekend, attracting up to 30 participants each time.

Buffalo is home to rising NFL star Josh Allen, tasty wings, and soon an inaugural high school unified bocce league that will be played on innovative inflatable bocce courts from Packaworld.

The new unified league, run with support from Special Olympics New York, will see students with and without disabilities competing together in teams for their high schools to determine the divisions they are placed into for a finals tournament in the fall.

The league’s creation follows the success of the inaugural Section VI Unified Bocce Culminating Tournament in November 2022, attended by 66 students from four high schools.

One of the reasons bocce has remained popular and retained its appeal over thousands of years is that it can be played on a wide range of surfaces – from high grade oyster shell and grass to artificial turf and carpet.

Bocce ball can be played just about anywhere that has a reasonably flat surface. You could find yourself playing on the beach, in a park, bar, or community center, on a cruise ship, or at home in your backyard.

The best surfaces for bocce ball are smooth and uniform to allow fast rolling and straight tracking of balls. Proper bocce ball tournaments require a court with back walls and side walls to allow players to play bank shots, rebounding their bocce ball off the walls to get around blocking balls and nestle in close to the pallino.

Bocce will soon be booming across the islands of the Florida Keys thanks to the recent arrival of eight high-quality portable bocce courts purchased by Special Olympics Florida.

The revolutionary courts, developed by Packaworld International, will be provided to schools in the archipelago so they can run school-based and inter-school unified bocce competitions for students. Generous grants from the Ocean Reef Community Foundation and the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys helped make the purchase possible.

“The portable courts allow us to offer the sport of bocce to a wider range of individuals with disabilities and also provide inclusive opportunities for those without disabilities," said Ruth Coleman from Special Olympics Florida.

Dozens of children and young people with vision impairments are now enjoying the thrill of playing goalball with top-quality goals, thanks to the arrival of portable Goalball Packagoals in Pennsylvania.   

The portable goals from Packaworld were used by Envision Blind Sports for the first time at its 2022 summer camp, held at Penn State University for Blind or Visually Impaired (BVI) children between ages 5 and 18.

Envision Blind Sports Executive Director Wendy Fagan said the children and young people taking part in the camp and goalball sessions run since have enjoyed playing with proper goals instead of cones or goals made of unwieldy PVC pipe.

"I’ve been coaching for 30 years, and I’ve never been this affected by a piece of sports equipment before."