The Minnesota Wild’s Marian Gaborik became the first player since Sergei Fedorov in 1996 to score five goals in a National Hockey League game when he scored five and added an assist against the New York Rangers last night. Marian considers floorball to be one of his favorite sports and plays on a team in the summer with fellow NHLers Pavol Demitra and Marian and Marcel Hossa during the off-season in Slovakia.

“We [Gaborik and Demitra] play on a team with the Hossa Bros. [the Rangers' Marcel and the Thrashers' Marian] and you basically use a little different, shorter stick and a plastic, light ball,” Demitra told the Star Tribune. “It’s very difficult cardio and conditioning, but it’s great for skills. It’s not easy to handle the balls. You have to have a lot of skills to do it. It’s a fun game, but I think it really helped to strengthen Marian’s leg muscles.”

Congratulations on the great achievement, Marian. Mats Sundin, another NHLer who plays floorball, also scored five goals in a game back in 1994 while with the Quebec Nordiques. Read more about Mats and floorball at NYCFloorball’s website.

Links:
TSN: Gaborik’s great night inspired by Bure
PlayFloorball.com: NHL stars Gaborik, Demitra and Hossa Bros. credit floorball for on-ice success

This entry was posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 at 7:29 pm and is filed under Media Coverage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.