Portable goalball goals bringing sport to Canadians with vision impairments

New inflatable goalball goals are helping a Canadian sport organisation introduce sport and physical activity to aspiring blind and low vision participants, as well as supporting its high-performance goalball athletes.

The Alberta Sports and Recreation Association for the Blind (ASRAB) has recently received two portable Goalball Packagoals from New Zealand company Packaworld International. The unique goals are the same size as conventional nine-metre-wide metal goalball goals but are inflatable, making them easy to transport and store.

ASRAB Executive Director Linda MacPhail said the new goals would play an important part in helping the Association to take its sport and recreation programmes to people with vision impairments in more towns and cities across Alberta.

“We are trying to take goalball beyond Calgary and Edmonton and into the smaller centres. Our current goals are metal, heavy and bulky and it’s just not feasible to take them away for one-off events or short training sessions. The new portable goals are perfect.”

The portable goals have so far been used as part of sport and physical activity programmes run by the Association in Calgary and Red Deer, and Ms MacPhail said they hoped to take them to other locations in the near future.

Many ASRAB events were run in leisure centres or school gymnasiums that didn’t have existing goalball goals. The new inflatable goals could easily be packed up into a bag and transported anywhere, she said.

“We use goalball as part of our programmes to develop physical literacy and fundamental movement skills in children with a vision impairment. Because goalball is in the Paralympics an athletic pathway exists for the sport, and it creates a goal for children to strive for.

“A lot of our kids have siblings who play sport so for them to be able to participate in a sport like goalball, which is specifically designed for people with visual impairments, is great, and it really normalises the team sport experience”

Ms MacPhail said ASRAB aimed to get children involved in goalball at five or six years of age to learn throwing, defending and team communication. Building their goalball skills gave them confidence, and improving their communication and spatial awareness was invaluable in many areas of their lives, she said.

Packaworld Chief Executive Peter Roberts said he was thrilled to hear about the difference the Goalball Packagoals were making in Canada.

“When we design products we always have a clear idea of the problems they are going to solve, but the difference they make only really hits home when you see photos and hear stories like this one.”

Mr Roberts said Goalball Packagoals were developed in consultation with Blind Sport New Zealand. Their concept had been refined during testing by goalball clubs in New Zealand and they were now gaining international attention.

“People are excited by the potential to take goalball on the road and to introduce it to new communities that wouldn’t otherwise have had a chance to play. They are widely used in New Zealand and we’re now seeing a lot of interest from clubs and organisations in North America, Australia and across Europe.”

Goalball Packagoals were also used by the Great Britain Goalball team for an exhibition match at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield late last year. They are manufactured using heavy-duty thermoplastic that is fully rigid once inflated, and each comes with its own carry bag.

For more information about our portable goalball goals visit the Goalball Packagoals page on this website >>