Hey Austin Floorballers!
So, I never keep my floorball shoes in my bag unless I am going to be playing floorball within a 24 hour period of some sort. I noticed yesterday that my floorball shoes were in my bag. Bottom line, I have not touched my floorball bag since March 15th. Le sigh...
The purpose of this email is just to get in touch with everyone, mostly, just to stay in touch, because I think we can all assume there is not much floorball happening soon enough.
League
League is definitely being postponed. We were scheduled to start April 5th, but we really have no idea when that might be able to start back up. I don't want to speculate, so I won't. All I can tell you is that we are in communications with Rock Sports Arena, and we plan to be back on for the first Sunday that we can. For those of you who have already signed up for Spring League, you are good to go. If you have not signed up already, you still can. We will leave registration open and we will adjust the annual league dates once some sort of normality sets back in.
Tuesday Nights
Until we have any progress from Covid-19, we are at the will of the city.
Annual Member Shirts
These shirts are in. I have them. They are actually really cool. All the color variety is great! I will get them to you as soon as possible
Texas Open Tournament
It's been a couple weeks since now, but on March 14-15, we sent a team up to Arlington, Texas to play in the Texas Open Tournament put on by the North Texas Floorball Association. We placed 4 th place out of 6 teams. Of course, everyone wants to place higher, but there is absolutely no shame for the Austin Floorball Club at this tournament. All the teams were extremely competitive and all of the games were very close. It was a great tournament, and The Austin Floorball Club showed the floorball community that we are alive and well. The club team showed great camaraderie, organization, sportsmanship, and leadership. I cannot thank everyone involved enough for their commitment to the team and the club in making this tournament one of the most successful teams we've sent to a tournament in a while. Let's keep the ball rolling, Nationals will be in the fall! (Hopefully)
We can't forget about some of our other members of the club that participated on the Men's U19 team at the tournament, Case Connor and Joe Bliss! The Men's U19 team came in 3 rd place at the tournament. From my personal perspective, this is the best the Men's U19 team has ever looked. They beat the Austin Floorball Club team TWICE in the tournament. Case and Joe represented our club and the USA proudly! Awesome work, guys!
A few specific shout-outs need to be made:
-Johanna took the responsibility of being the coach for the team. She organized and managed our team strategies, lines, practices, and overall physical preparation for the tournament. This is something we've never really done before, sending a coach with the team, but Jo's experience with coaching women's lacrosse and her natural leadership abilities help make this team competitive and it was much more fun having her help on the sidelines.
On top of that, Jo spends a lot of her own time managing our club finances and tax preparation, while also keeping me in place. Be sure to thank her the next time you see her, because this club would be nowhere as successful as it is without her.
-Mark Raup has to be thanked here! With so much organizational leadership happening in the club right now, Mark was able to focus on his role as Captain for the team, and this is really where he is needed the most. Mark's fearless leadership skills are unparalleled. Paired with his orator skills and basically endless knowledge of floorball (and sports in general), Mark helped keep the team alive, encouraged, and in line. Thank you, Mark!
- Mukesh Kumar Venkat Ramani also has to be thanked for the success of our team at this tournament. Mukesh stepped up to play goalie and he played fantastically, offered goalie perspective and thoughtful insights to the team place, and really kept the scoring much lower than it could have been. On top of that, he also helped manage lodging for some of the team players and is always putting in time to make sure this club is successful. Thank you, Mukesh.
-All the team players! Wow. We sent basically 3 full offensive lines and 2 full defensive lines. Everyone worked together, made changes on the fly, and played their hardest. Everyone paid dues on time and we had great attendance at all the practices leading up to the tournament. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all the team players to being so committed. This by far is the best team I have ever played on with the club!
HUMMUS
Gonna do some cross promoting here. One of our own, Dan Parseghian, has started up his own hummus company. He makes hummus from green chickpeas. I got some from him last week and IT IS DELICIOUS. If you love hummus, this is definitely some good stuff, so go help out a fellow floorballer. Hit him up at friendshummus@gmail.com to get an order in!
Le Fin
Whelp, it's Sunday afternoon and I just spent 2.5 hours on floorball stuff, so I am not going to proofread this thoroughly.
We will keep you all up to date as best as possible. Please stay home during this crazy time. We will be back to playing floorball as soon as we can!
As always, please feel free to reach out to me with any questions, concerns, or if you just want to chat!
Floyd