Playground Floorball

Training last Saturday was held up above, in the basketball court in Taman Gelugor (according to Mikey). Fears that it would rain and interfere with training were quashed as it turned out to be great weather for floorball: not too hot nor too wet.

However, Miss Communication did put a tiny damper on the day as somehow or other, Kyle did not get the message that training was held here, but SuperChan (a.k.a. Coach Jason) flew to the rescue and brought him right over.

There were a couple of faces missing; Roselyn from fever, and both Tania and Sonia being unavailable, but so were there old, familiar, long-time-no-see faces in Steven, Sharron and Sanjeevan and Loga (as shown above). Altogether, a total of 20 people turned up.

Training started with jogging and warm-up led by Kuan Yang, up and down the road beside the court.


However, Tim Duncan and Yao Ming (not in picture) had rights to one end of the court, so the Frontliners had to be content with short passing at the other end.

"I want 30 passes to forehand. And look up!" said Kuan Yang.
(passpasspass)
"Okay! (big sigh) Kuan Yang, finished 30 passes already!" Pei Li said.
"Hah? Okay, now give me 40!"

Overall, it was kind of tough, passing on the uneven surface, and Pei Li kept checking her new blade to see if it was okay. No one reached the target, in Kuan Yang's eyes, and whoever claimed to do so was quickly squelched under his rapidfire demand to know whether they looked up and passed to forehand.


Duncan and Yao were still not done slam-dunking, so Kuan Yang had the Frontliners line up in three rows. Sadly, it was not to be t'ai-chi as Kenny so thought, but taekwando-style ball control. Most of the Frontliners had no problem keeping the ball under control thanks to Coach Jason's mad fixation on the importance of ball control.

And in between ball-controlling and waiting for the b-ball stars to disappear, Steven impressed the people around with his airhooks, more often failing than succeeding.

With the court finally empty, the players paired up and did a lobbing exercise. Slow to grasp it at first, they managed to get the ball to fly a considerable height, and in no time, balls were flying anywhere and everywhere. Sanjeevan, in particular, had lovely technique in lobbing.


With about one hour plus gone, the coaches decided it was time for the players to strut their stuff. Still no goalposts, and neither were there benches, so Coach Jason decided to go with the old-fashioned cones apart. Or wait... too easy for the players. He pulled them together and decreed that the ball had to touch the cones for the players to score.

Kuan Yang added that whoever lost had 20 pushups in store for them.


And so it started! Pei Li discovered, to her utmost shock, that people actually do slip when running through puddles. Once, twice and thrice. Suffice to say she was soaked through when the match ended.

Sanjeevan showed he had not lost touch, scoring a cracker of a goal from distance, knocking over both cones. A first-timer too. There was also good interplay between Kenny, Loga and Pei Li. Sanjeevan quickly added another with a carbon copy of his first after a lay-off from Kenny.


The juniors were getting bored, so Coach Jason called for change. More energy, more enthusiasm... less fluidity. Kyle was another player who got soaked in clean rainwater, hopefully. Play continued, even though the ball frequently flew out of court and onto the grass. This was where the lobbing practice came useful in plenty.

The slides and monkey-bars offered plenty of distraction, not only for juniors like Julian and Gabriel, but also for Kenny, who used the slide as a napping-ground.

Mikey eventually pulled one back for the Saints 'All-Stars' team, enjoying his goal to the max, but they were well and truly beaten 4-2 in the end.

It had begun to rain, so the Frontliners quickly gathered under the largest tree in sight, where the coaches talked briefly about next year's Penang League and then let the team go off. Although both PBSM and Kompleks Belia were unavailable, the players clearly enjoyed themselves, which was good to see.