WA Kookaburras Floorball Club

WA Kookaburras Floorball Club was established in 2005 to accommodate the numbers of new floorball players in Western Australia. From one mixed team in '05/06, Kookas has now expanded with and A and B Division Elite Series  team, Women's teams in the '07 and '09 Australian Floorball Open (AFO) and a junior team in the '07 AFO.  4 members represented Australia in the 2005 Asian Pacific Championships, including our club coach Juerg Kihm. Kihm has been the Australian national coach or assistant for the men's and women's sides in the last  5 World Floorball Championships (WFC). He has an extensive coaching history in Switzerland including the Swiss National U19 Girls. Ten members of the club represented WA teams in the 2006 Australian Floorball Open (AFO) in Mornington, Victoria. This was the largest representative number by any Western Australian club. As a club, we had a difficult inaugural season with the development of the club constitution and playing tactics. However we were determined, and improved dramatically over the season. We narrowly missed out on playing in the Elite Series final, losing our semi-final in extra time to the eventual premiers. For the WA Kookaburras this first season was very successful. In the 2006/7 Elite Series, WA Kookaburras fielded both a Men's and a Women's team. Five members of the Men's team represented Australia at the 2006 Asian Pacific Championships, while five of the women attended the national training squad in Perth. The Kookaburras included junior development in this season and were the only club to have men's, women's and junior teams at the 2007 Australian Floorball Open in Perth. Five Kookas girls represented Australia at the 2007 World Championships, in Denmark as well as coach Juerg Kihm and assistant coach Grant Mead, also Kookas. While WA Kookaburras have been successful at the Elite level, we have also concentrated on increasing numbers of social players and juniors players, running clinics for school groups, and teachers. In the 2007/8 Elite Series WA Kookaburras had a men's A division team and two mixed teams in the B division. Our A Division team won their first Series, while our Kookas White team were unlucky, losing in sudden death extra time in the B Divison final. 2008 saw several WA Kookaburras take the international stage with Jill Roberts, Lisa Sampey and Leith Woods representing the Australian Women in Poland for a Four Nations Tournament. Alex Peck and Jacob Stanley represented the Men's team at APAC held in Perth and Tim Singer, Tim Campbell and Jaxon McSwain represented the U19 Men's team in the same tournament. Kookas fielded both an A and B Divison team for the Elite and continued their success winning both titles. A sweet victory for the B team going a step better than previous and even sweeter for the A Division going to in a row.In 2009 WA Kookas travelled interstate to attend the 09 AFO in Canberra. While our womens team enjoyed moderate success, with a lot of enjoyment and learning, our men's team took out the final with the help of two fellow WA players Peter Harris and Andrew Cathie, from Dingoes, recently recruited David Westlund, and Finnish Lacrosse player Antti Hassinen. This was the perfect send off for Club Coach/player Juerg Kihm who has been with Kookas since the beginning.The 2009/10 FAWA Elite Series was an interrupted  season mixed with players going to Sweden for the World Floorball Championships and Singapore for the Asia-Oceania Qualifiers. Both our A and B Division teams made the play offs with the A's finishing 2nd at the end of the season and going out in the semi final to Pirates 5-3, the B's finishing 3rd on the ladder and also losing their semi to Sharks 8-0. Congratulations to Roger Sallenbach for his Season MVP award, backing up 2 in a row. A Division player and former club coach Juerg Kihm took the Australian Women's team to the World Floorball Championships in Sweden and along with WA Kookaburras Jill Roberts, Tania Perpoli, Leith Woods, Fiona Wainwright, and Lisa Sampey went on to win the B Division and automatically qualify for 2011. A Division player Grant Mead took the Australian Men's team to Singapore and helped by Kihm and WA Kookaburra players Alex Peck and Jaxon McSwain and they qualified for the final place for WFC 2010 in Finland. In December of 2010 Tim Campbell, our A Division captain and club team mate Mike Hamer travelled to Helsinki, Finland to take on Sweden, Germany, Estonia, Denmark and Japan. January 2011, APAC was held in Perth which gave several Kookas the chance to represent Australia or a development team in front of their home crowd. Congratulations to Tania Perpoli, Jill Roberts, Fiona Wainwright, Leith Woods, Caitlin Park, Kathryn Slattery, Teresa Annese and Cameron Creagh on their selection. Creagh was named in the Men's Development Allstar team and the U19 Men won their competition. The development Women's team dominated the Singapore development team and Annese also was selected in the Allstar team. The Australian Women beat Singapore 3-0 with Roberts getting MVP for the game but lost to Japan and finished second on goal difference. Roberts, Perpoli and Woods were all selected in the Women's Allstar Team. 2010/11 was a time of transition with the loss of 8 experienced players from our A Division and our biggest mentor, club brain child and finals goal scoring freak, Juerg Kihm, our younger boys had to step up and fill some big shoes some of the girls had to drop back into B Division due to rule changes and we welcomed many new recruits. One of the year's highlights was the Spring Break Fresher Party, a relaxing introduction to the season backed up by the B's pulling out a close win against Redbacks at 8:30am the next morning. Our A's were knocked out of the semi finals and while the B team made the grand final, they could not break through Pirates defence losing the Grand Final 2-0. Fiona Wainwright won Kookas player of the B Div final, and Angelo Tinelli won the overall MVP for the season.