SEA Games 2015 Blog

Joscelin’s Story
Joscelin Kee
Audit Associate & Team Singapore floorball player

What a journey it has been!

When I started playing floorball back in my junior college days, never did I expect to be part of the team that made history – winning the gold medal for Singapore at floorball’s competitive debut at this year’s SEA Games!

Truth be told, I did not feel an affinity to floorball the first time I tried it. I was a netballer for 10 years, from primary to secondary school, and using a stick to control a ball felt unnatural to me. But, as fate would have it, less than a week after I first laid hands on a floorball stick, I was encouraged to play a friendly match with another school. I conceded a goal at the match and while it was understandable as I was a newbie to the sport, it really got me down. To add salt to the wound, someone came up to me after the match and told me that I would never make it into the school floorball team judging from the way I played.

While I felt very indignant, that comment made me persevere and train hard to prove the naysayer wrong. As I trained and got more involved with the team, I fell in love with floorball for its adrenaline pumping and fast-paced nature. After a year of picking up the sport, I found myself training 6 times a week with my school team, the Singapore Combined Schools team as well as an external club to compete in the Floorball league, while juggling my A-levels preparation at the same time! So of all the things that playing floorball has taught me, the one that stands out is most certainly time management.

I play the forward position within the floorball team and I think it quite accurately reflects my personality – aggressive, determined and hardworking. I apply these three traits to both my floorball and audit career with the belief that if you want success as badly as you want to breathe, then you would go all out to get it!

Being part of Team Singapore and representing the country on home ground is certainly a great achievement for me and it is always a joy to me when my family, friends and colleagues are able to watch me play and witness my passion for the sport and desire to do the nation proud.

My first two competitions played in Singapore - the 6th World University floorball competition and the Southeast Asia Floorball Championships, both in 2014 - were nothing like what I experienced at the SEA Games. This was the first time that floorball was being introduced and showcased nationwide and the crowd for the Games was two to three times bigger than what I experienced previously. This definitely added to the excitement but I told myself the same thing I do for all my other competitions - be calm, fight hard and stay strong through it all.

We won the gold medal after extra time and penalties against Thailand. The Thai players started their team only 6 months ago, and while they may not be as experienced, their speed and stamina made up for it. They were a very determined and physical bunch, and they came down hard on us, even during the round robin stages.

There were many close calls during the extra time of 10 minutes where the first team to score a goal would win but I am proud to say that Team Singapore did not waver, and with a more skillful edge, we took home the gold medal to roaring cheers from the crowd that filled the venue! I heard from our supporters, some of whom are my Deloitte colleagues, that it was a very exciting match that kept them at the edge of their seats!

I am determined to be an even better and stronger player from here onwards. Now that floorball has made its debut in the SEA Games, I hope that it will be included as a sport in more major sporting events, and that I will have a chance to represent Singapore then.

“Tough times don’t last, tough men do.” This is a saying that I live by and what I tell people whom I know are on the verge of giving up. At times when juggling the countless trainings and long working hours gets too much to handle, I will think about what got me started in the first place. It is the passion for the sport and my job that keeps me going. You do not give up easily on what you love. If you do, then you do not love it enough. For aspiring sports people in Singapore, keep faith and chase your dreams, because it will all be well worth it in the end.

Joscelin