Quiet in the court!!!

Ssshhhh! The players need to practice! Huh? It's not a library, but that's what it seemed like during training this week. Other than some startling screams from Ms. Koay Yi Lin, the court was deafeningly silent.

Which was a little surprising, considering the attendance. Twelve people came for training, including Rooban from Innebandy! Co and someone new (Frontliners Floorball Club wants to officially welcome Parthiban to the club). Several faces were missing, including Mr. Jason.... Perhaps that's why training was as mentioned. His inspiration and weighty presence were sorely missed.

Training started with passing and some other basic drills, but even for the basic ones (let's not think about the more advanced ones) the players were already soullessly silent. Strolling from station to station and playing spiritless balls that a slight breeze would stop, anyone would not be guilty in thinking that a bunch of respectable centurions would do better.

Kuan Yang finally called for game time. Assigning the players to groups of three, Ms. Koay again turned up to be the top scorer, beating her previous record of three. Without doubt she was the best ladies player on the court, running tirelessly to pursue every ball and adding some sound effects to her actions. Felicia, who joined the club just for almost a month, deserves special mention as she has shown tremendous improvement since the last training.

After the game the players heaved a sigh of relief, but apparently Kuan Yang had something more. Ordering everyone to stand in a line, he waited patiently for the players to realize he wanted a horizontal line, then told them to run. After only one killer he ordered them to stop as anyone could see they were dead tired.

After training, newcomer Parthiban, on asked how he found floorball: "It is fun... fun," and agreed to come for more trainings.

End word? The court is NOT a library (not to put any negative impression, books are good for you), so buck up, you who call yourselves Frontliners!

YOU are wanted: Dead or alive (though preferably the latter...)

Frontliners training! ...was okay. Not great or terrible, just okay (okay is good, just in case it sounds negative). The skyrocketing attendance came a little bit back down to earth with an average attendance of eight.

All the more for those who missed out on training this week to feel a little unhappy because Mr. Jason had injected something new into training. He had mentioned it the week before but, seeing that school holds a higher priority than floorball (to parents or their children?) the higher attendance expected did not materialize.

That something new? Technology. Ooh... bet you felt shivers run down your spine and your blood turn cold when this word was mentioned. Yeah, right, though Mr. Jason seemed to think it did. Must be because he came up with it.

The technology turned out to be Mr. Jason bringing along a laptop. On it he showed a slide show. About floorball. Wow. Pretty awe-inspiring, huh? Enough about that. Let's get back to the real, hard stuff.

Training was held as usual and as expected, with the basic drills being done and also some other new ones, which for this week, were fakes. The players learnt how to execute a fake(obviously) on the court, which, really, was interesting. No kidding.

And again as usual came the time when the drills were ended(thank God) and when the players conveniently forgot everything they had learnt and just had lots of fun on the court: Match time.
On the assignment given by Mr. Jason last week, the ones with the best record were Steven and Pei Li, with four times a week for each of them. Mr. Jason refused to comment on this week's assignment, saying there was no point saying it, as there were too few people in training.
Therefore(no, that's way too formal... nevermind, sticking with it), calling all Frontliners! The club needs YOU.

Three cheers (though I never get why three) for the attendance this week.

Promising. That, supposedly, is the most positive word that can be used to describe the growth of the club as the numbers slowly increase again.

After a dismal month of an average of seven/eight people per training, attendance on Saturday nearly touched the sky as thirteen people came. Hurrah.

Still, training was not hampered by the surprising number of people (there was a new face, Felicia from MGS) and Mr. Jason divided the team into two groups: one being for the newbies which "JediMaster" (as follows Mr. Jason) Kuan Yang took, and another being for... those considerably experienced (say two years, except for Sarah Ng who can be considered very mature in floorball, and... definitely NOT oldies, just to note) taken by Mr. Jason himself.

Kuan Yang made his charges do basic drills like ball control while Mr. Jason set his drill level at 'gear 5' and insisted no 'recoiling' when having the ball.

The players made a considerable effort, though it was rather disturbing. Meaning the look on Mr. Jason's face when he was looking at what he called the 'optimum space' where he could see both the ball and the space above.

Then later the two groups joined to do other drills, one of them being the 'landmine' drill where... yeah, landmine. As in it took the same form of the 'four corners of the world' drill, but the obstacles were considerably much more, and the penalty for knocking down one of them was five pushups.

The ladies were then divided into two groups, same for the guys, and it was GAME ON!
Apparently, it was the first time the ladies scored more than the guys (thanks to Koay Yi Lin, who scored all three and attributed them to being 'lucky').

And then came the debriefing. Mr. Jason introduced a system very similar to what the players call 'homework', wanting them to practice a certain thing he gives the whole week and recording it in a book.

Well... as he says... "You want to be a professional player, you must train like one!" There you go.

Frontliners Training... yeah, that's it.

Where has everyone gone? School, supposedly, so the conclusion that can be made is either that Frontliners Floorball Club is young and committed (to school, at least) or that the club is old and worn-out and will shut down soon.

Still, an average number of eight attended training at PBSM. The primary focus of training was on ball control. Mr. Jason repeatedly emphasized on basic ball control and not the more advanced techniques because, according to him, the players had not yet mastered the basics.

Several drills were incorporated, mostly to do with dribbling between the cones and then shooting (5 push-ups for every miss, but as the ratio of misses to goals were about 2:1, Mr. Jason gave up with it) and decidedly the most enjoyable, original drill of all was one where a player had to dribble around four cones with another player trying to prevent it.

Great inventions come from great minds. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jason Chan. (Applause encouraged)

Then later the players played a 4v4 match with keeper-less goals yet still the goals were.. not really forthcoming, shall we say?

Conclusion therefore being that for Public Relations and Publicity, it is and will henceforth be made known that this club is actively honing and fine-tuning the skills of the many young talents in the club who will be world-class in the coming years. Honest.

Note: to those who have no idea what a PR job is all about, it is rather like making a stinky, fat rafflesia sound like a beautiful rose. Or carnation, for a matter of fact (those who know not what I talk about, refer to the entry on April 21). And... this is merely an example, so please do not take this in an extreme manner.

Lion's Heart... and almost a lion's share

The Penang Open Challenge has come and gone. Primary purpose of participating, as put down before, was to expose the players AND to show off their impressive Nike jerseys (if not the only reason).

Sharron Tan (GK)

Line 1:
Khor Kuan Yang

Kew Pei Li

Mekananth

Por K Yan

Line 2:
Jason Chan

San Jeevan
Joshua

Alice Ong

Subs:
Christopher Anand

Ilaiye Pumaren

Goekula Kannan

The first game did more than expose-- it geared the team up for what they all knew would be a tough day. Up against the Subang Rascals, boasting the likes of Sasi and co., Frontliners did okay (in fact they did quite well for a warm-up match) and only lost by a mere seven goals :)

Along with the next game came the Dalat Moldy Oldies. One up to Frontliners in no time thanks to Joshua, but they let in two successive goals before the Game Over. 2-1, then, to the Dalat team. Not bad, really... after the generous first game's scoreline.

Come the third game, Frontliners changed into their white strip and trooped out against Salibandy! Co. Better organized and prepared, Frontliners again drew first blood after some slick teamwork between Joshua and Jason. Drawing level soon after and going ahead after a bad call by the ref (in view of the threat of floorball hooligans, the club has decided not to release his name;), with time running out, it looked like the team was doomed to their third straight defeat... when out of nothing, Jason decided to have a whack at goal inside his own half. Somehow, just somehow, the ball managed to find its way into the net. Frontliners 2-2 Salibandy! Co.The scoreline says it all (though methinks Jason wouldn't mind adding a few words...)

Revved up, the Frontliners engine did not lose any speed against their next opponents, Innebandy! Co and were unfortunate to be undone by an opportunistic strike from Mr. Daniel.

Up against familiar faces from Contact, the team lined up against them with the 8-3 mauling a month ago still fresh in their minds. Both teams did well and played to a one-all draw, but Kuan Yang missed an oh-so-glorious opportunity to garner a win for Frontliners after some good work by the Contact goalie. Later on, a Contact player acknowledged that the team had improved much since the friendly.

The players, apparently, had saved their best and also their tempers for last. Playing against the second Dalat team, Frontliners was showered with two minutes(es?) with goals during those periods rubbing in some extra salt.

All the players deserve to be commended for their performance, some more than others (though as Mr. Jason says, there is no 'i' in team, so...), holding the tag of underdogs but not walkovers. And although there will be no nasi kandar water this time (Note: you should be able to guess who's writing this report by now), the club has announced to all of Penang that for the Frontliners Floorball Club, the best is yet to come.

GO GO PENANG OPEN CHALLENGE !!!

The long-awaited Penang Open Challenge is finally here. Frontliners will be sending a team into the tournament. In preparation for the tournament, the Frontliners have been engaged with 7 intensified training sessions in 2 weeks before the challenge.

The names representing the Frontliners in Penang Open Challenge will include

1. Sharron Tan, GK
2. Khor Kuan Yang, Player-Coach
3. Jason Chan
4. Joshua
5. Mekananth
6. San Jeevan
7. Ilaiye Pumaren
8. Christopher Anand
9. Por Kai Yann
10. Goekula Kannan
11. Alice Ong
12. Kew Pei Li

Coach Kuan Yang said " Our purpose of joining this tournament is to expose our players to more competitions."

Asked on how he felt about the trainings held, Joshua Raj said " we improved a lot during this extra training sessions. "

This tournament will be a good experience for all the players. There will be lots of quality players participating in it. A team from KL will be sending national players and some foreigners. The competition is going to be tough.

CEO Jason Chan says, "Participating in this tournament will be the first step in our so-called "Project 2007" program. While we are not the best in terms of our overall skills and experience, we are aiming to do our best in the tournament. We aren't expecting much though. But we believe that the players will learn a lot during this tournament."

Coach Kuan Yang says with a military tone, "The whole purpose of joining the tournament is not to win. The purpose is to PLAY WELL !!! "

Whatever they say, we wish Frontliners all the best. May we see the best of the FRONTLINERS during the tournament.

Frontliners Training: Business As Usual

This week is the second week Frontliners is having boys and girls training together as preparation of the up coming Penang Open Challenge.

The attendance was slightly reduced due to some of the players attending school co-curriculum activities while both Jason and Sarah had to attend leaders meeting.

Training started of in regular fashion with few rounds of jogging and warm-up drills such as ‘Snakes’ and ‘2 on 1’. New coach Kuan Yang was a bit picking on the ‘2 on 1’ drills as he halted it to emphasize on the positioning play of the defender.

The coach gathered the players and explained a few basic tips of being a defender, such as how to position your body, staying calm, and backtracking. He then paired the players up with both of them facing each other and started of with a backtracking drill, where the attacker will run forward while the defender will backtrack and players will change roles in turn.

“This drill is to training your footwork so that you won’t injure yourself in training or real matches” said the coach.

A little bit of fun was added in the same drill with the attacker trying to out run the defender. “If the attacker has run past you, what’s the point of backtracking? Have more common sense. Turn around and run with the attacker.”

The “2 on 1” drill was resumed and the defensive play improved. After the drills it was the much more anticipated game play which everyone enjoyed the most. Overall, it was just usual business with a bid of extra intensity from the new coach who has high hopes for the club.