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.

When the first bocce balls of this year’s Special Olympics NZ National Summer Games were thrown by athletes in Hamilton earlier this month, it signified something of a milestone for the portable Packabocce courts being used.

This year was the first calendar year the portable courts have appeared at National or State Games in three separate continents, following their use at multiple major events in the USA and Europe.

New Zealand’s premier Special Olympics event was hosted at Claudelands Event Centre and attended by around 1,000 athletes. Bocce is one of 10 different sports included in New Zealand’s National Summer Games programme and this year’s bocce athletes competed in both doubles and teams events.

Students from across Minnesota mixed and mingled on portable bocce courts from Packaworld at the Minnesota Unified Bocce State Tournament earlier this month.
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M Health Fairview Sports Center in Woodbury rolled out some of the 31 Packabocce courts owned by Special Olympics Minnesota to host more than 140 students from 17 schools at the tournament.

Katie Howlett from Special Olympics Minnesota said the event was “fantastic” and she was impressed with the convenience of the inflatable courts.

“Everyone loved using the Packbocce courts, particularly the event managers, because they were just so easy to move around and set up.”

Anticipation was high as Gibraltar faced off against the Isle of Man at the start of the Special Olympics Gibraltar National Games 2022.

The competition rolled into action at the Bayside Sports Complex on 22 September after a three year delay due to Covid, with two portable Packaworld’s Packabocce courts setting the stage for an international bocce battle.

This year’s National Games were the first in Gibraltar to feature bocce – a sport for people of all abilities that has become the fourth most popular sport in Special Olympics programmes globally.

Special Olympics Gibraltar President and CEO Annie Risso said the bocce competition had been a success for athletes and organisers, who commented on the “high quality” playing experience offered by the courts, as well as their ease of setup.