OXFORD — Broomball fever is about to sweep Miami University.

The National Broomball Tournament will be held at the Goggin Ice Center March 22 through March 24.

The sport, which is popular among students on campus, will be coming to Miami for its national championship for the first time and will feature 32 adult teams. Usually, the tournament is held in Minnesota due to the overwhelming popularity of the sport in that part of the United States, said John Mihalik, the event director at Goggin, but this year the organization is making a change.

Games will be played from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on March 22 and 23, as well as from 8 a.m. to noon on March 24. Admission is free and all games are open to the public.

“The tournament coming here is a great thing because it creates a new buzz about the sport in a different area of the country,” he said. “And because the tournament is in Ohio this year, it has created buzz as far away as the East Coast, as some of the teams playing are from that area of the nation.”

Mihalik said that this tournament is a little different from traditional tournaments in that there is no qualifying.

“If you have a team that wants to compete, you can play,” he said. “However, there are different divisions in order to separate skill level.”

There are four men’s divisions ranging from A to D, with A being the most competitive, and there are two co-recreational divisions, with the A and B divisions combined, along with the C and D divisions. The men’s A division is full contact, and checking is allowed. There is also a collegiate division, where club teams can compete for their schools.

The tournament is round-robin style, with the regular games being played all day Friday, March 22 and Saturday, March 23. The finals will be on Sunday, March 24. There will be close to 500 players competing, said Mihalik. With all of the family and friends that will also be coming to watch the games, organizers expect 1,000 or more people coming into Oxford for the event.

Mihalik said that the ice center is very confident about hosting such an event.

“We think we have one of the better facilities in the country,” he said. “We understand that there is a very diverse group of teams coming, and the center can accommodate all of them.”

Mihalik said one goal of the tournament is to create buzz around campus.

“We’ve been trying to get people around campus talking about broomball, and this event is helping us do that,” he said.