A little too ordinary... so let's be unorthodox and go for a totally neutral, straightforward report on all the happenings of the last few weeks.
Frontliners Floorball Club and Ztec 8cers teamed up, along with Penang Floorball Association, to organize this tournament. This tournament was divided into three categories: Juniors, Women and Open. The first two are rather self-explanatory while the Open meant that anyone could play, even them tall and strong foreigners.
The Juniors and Women's games were held on the 13th of September; the Open one week later. The game format slightly differed for each category: Juniors being a 3v3, Women's a 4v4 and Open another 4v4 but with goalie.
In the Juniors' category, eight teams had registered: Two from Dalat, Contact and Firebrands, and one from Frontliners and Ztec. Of the lot, Dalat and Contact were probably the ones expected to fight it out for first place. Not many surprises, but there were some thrills, especially the hard-fought 3-2 seesaw win by F-Jr over fireBrands I2.
Dalat Kestrels (kestrel=small falcon), consisting of them not-so-tall but still taller than most players easily triumphed, with Dalat Falcons coming in second. Contact Hoppers defeated Ztec to win the bronze.
Jared Williams and Jordan Nagel of Falcons, and also Eythan Yeoh of Hoppers impressed the organizers enough to be named in the All-Star team.
Click below for results and standings.
The Junior's category officially ended, warming up whatever crowd there was for the Women's games. Again, there were eight teams: two from MGS and Frontliners, with USM, Contact, Innebandy and FGA all sending one team.
Looking at the registered names, it seemed that gold would be closely contested by Frontliners Fury, UniHawks, Contact Sugar and Innebabes, each boasting players of reasonable (comparative) quality: Fury with Kungfu Spartan Sharron and Pei Li; UniHawks with the almighty Sarah and sidekicks Wai Wai and Dawn; Sugar with hypermouse (term borrowed from Yi Lin) Penny and Sheryn, sister-of-almighty; plus Innebabes with sharpshooter Valerie and Elaine.
On that day itself it immediately became a three-horse race after Sharron pulled out of Fury, citing diarrhea and fever. Bar a miracle, it was impossible that Fury could muster a challenge on gold, being drawn into a group along with Sugar and Innebabes.
UniHawks kicked off the day with a great 7-0 rout of E&P of FGA. The Elephants and Pineapples were simply outrun, outplayed and outclassed. Tania was kept in constant check by the defence and, really, had no one to pass to anyway.
In the group that consisted of UniHawks, Ednamodes, E&P and Inferno, it was a race between the first two to score as many as possible. One that UniHawks easily won and went on to record an amazing 16 goals with just 1 against. Inferno took third spot with a lesser negative-goal-difference than E&P's.
In the other group, it was a more tightly-strung affair as Innebabes, Sugar and Fury all scrapped for the two qualifying places available. Innebabes did Sugar a favor, handing them the final qualifying spot, defeating Fury comfortably, 2-0.
E&P and Violets fought for the distinction of not being last, the former drawing first blood but Violets' equalizer meant penalties. From about 7m out, neither team seemed to be able to hit the target until Violets succeeded in rolling the ball across the line.
A delicious derby on the cards next: Fury, sorely-wounded animals against Inferno, who were hoping for an upset to claim bragging rights in Frontliners. Both playing with four and four players alone, Fury took advantage of their opponent's inexperience and ran out 4-0 winners; Inferno never once crossing their own half-way line.
It was in the semi-finals that the one genuine upset occurred: the game where UniHawks conceded their only goal and lost their only game, to Sugar. It all looked even throughout the match, Sheryn successfully neutralizing Sarah's threat and finding lots of joy in doing so, until an unfortunate mistake at the back by Wai Wai led to Sheryn scoring the only goal.
In the other semi-final, Innebabes defeated Ednamodes by a whisker of a goal, setting up a final clash with Sugar.
UniHawks gained scant consolation, thrashing Ednamodes 5-0 for bronze. A spate of own-goals did not help Ednamodes with their defence in shambles. Credit to them for being probably the loudest team that day, though.
Another closely-fought match -the final between Sugar and Innebabes, however, Sugar proved too much for Innebabes, and when they scored the one and only goal of the match, it never looked as if Innebabes were going to recover.
Sarah of UniHawks, predictably, ran out as top scorer with nine goals. Dawn also of UniHawks gained the Top Assists award (no such thing as Assist-er, is there?). The All-Star team comprised of Penny, Sarah, Valerie and Sheryn.
Click below for results, standings and charts.
Along came the rain, the crowd, and the action one week later. It poured in torrents, still Dalat was filled to the rafters. Fifteen teams had registered: an astounding four from Ztec, three from Contact and USM, two from Frontliners and Salibandy, and one from Dalat. Innebandy did not participate.
Group A consisted of Salibandy JJ, Contact Safari, Z3, UniHawks and 300 of Frontliners. UniHawks swept the competition away, winning all their matches and easily registering 11 goals for and none against, with the likes of the strapping Scandinavians Kimmo and Pirrka in the team.
It was recorded as a 2-0 win, in UniHawks' match with Z3, though the ball had found its way into the net three times (the last an awesome drag shot!), a refereeing mix-up ensured the score remained as it was, to the fury of Edward.
Group B had Salibandy JS, UnderDawgs Zirconium, Spartans, Z2 and Contact Army. The highlight of this group was when Zirconium, aided by good fortune and remarkable last-ditch defending, heroically held eventual champions Army to a goalless draw, thus sending Spartans through in first place.
Group C contained Dalat Buzzards, Z4, UnderDawgs Titanium, Ztec 8cers and Contact Driver. One of the most thrilling games in the tournament happened here, when Titanium played Buzzards. It was an extremely physical battle as most of the players weren't small and tiny Malaysians but giant foreigners. Honours shared this game, and Buzzards went on to top the group.
Valiant Salibandy JS lost to UniHawks 1-2 in the first quarter. The other three were goalless and had to go to penalties. The goalkeepers turned out to be the heroes; Suleen of Titanium and Sharron of Spartans, so it was UniHawks against Army and Titanium versus Spartans for the semi-finals.
However, first to decide the 5th to 8th placings. The strangest thing the crowd witnessed was in the 7th/8th placing match where Jun Wooi was forced to pull on the goalie's jersey. This helped Salibandy JJ to snatch 7th place right from under Buzzards' noses, 1-0.
Just as their ladies did, UniHawks did not make it to the final after Army put on a superb showing to keep Kimmo and Co. quiet. 1-0 to Army. In the other semi-final, it was a backs-to-the-wall job by Spartans as they defended desperately, riding their luck against the bigger and faster Titanium. It went to penalties, and SanJeevan scored the decisive penalty to send them through as Sharron again saved from the spot.It was a breathtaking derby match; Titanium versus UniHawks. A fast paced-encounter, and five goals were scored, but the match finally ended in UniHawks' favor, 3-2.
A rematch of the earlier game in which both teams drew blanks, then. Spartans went ahead in the second minute after Pei Li smashed in the rebound after robbing David of the ball, but one lapse of concentration proved fatal and Nicholas equalized exquisitely in the seventh minute.Army proved the more experienced and won 1-0 on penalties.
Kimmo won the Top Scorer award, notching up an amazing 12 goals (he scored 75% of UniHawks' goals!) and his teammate, Pirrka, won Top Assists. Sharron, Sanjeevan, James, Kimmo and Johannes made it into the All-Star team.Click below for results, standings and charts.
*Coming up... it's been a little too neutral, so we'll have a little one-sided, uninterrupted and probably a little biased thinking session by Tania, Sonia and Pei Li.
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