The former Finnish national team players Katri Luomaniemi and Nina Rantanen (nee Rantala) continue their work for women’s floorball in the Floorball Club Classic. Luomaniemi will coach Classic’s women’s team next season and Rantanen will start as the Junior Girl’s Manager in the beginning of 2021.
Katri Luomaniemi ended her own playing career in 2018. She thinks that it will offer tools to develop the women’s team:
– I’m excited to accept the title as a coach and I’m joining a great coaching team ready to learn new things. The season has already started and based on the first introductions, the next season’s Classic team seems very motivated and I’m looking forward to start working together. My own role as a player was on the one hand help the others to perform better and on other hand to actively develop the team’s way of playing, that I can now do from the other side of the bench. The team is a balanced mix of experienced players and future talents who will grow to carry responsibility, with who we get to develop Classic fighting with the big blue heart, Luomaniemi explains.
The manager of the women’s team, Irina Peltola, has known Luomaniemi for a long time and believes her experience will be a good addition for coaching.
– I have coached Katri earlier and already then, I though that this player would become a great coach. Her playing career and experiences from the leagues in Finland and Switzerland and the national team career will be beneficial. We have asked Katri to join already earlier, but now she has taken the needed distance from her own playing career and we got her with us in Family, says Peltola and continues:
– In our club we have always respected women’s sport and women acting in sport. Knowing how to coach is not depending on gender, but we are very happy that we got a woman in our coaching team.
Luomaniemi represented Finland three times in the Women’s World Floorball Championships, most recently in 2017 in Bratislava. The first international matches she played in 2007 at the Euro Floorball Tour.
Rantanen continues her work in Classic
Nina Rantanen also ended her own playing career in 2018. In Classic, she will be responsible for junior girls. She will start in her new position in the beginning of January 2021 when she is back from her maternity leave.
– I’m taking up this new challenge happy and motivated. I’ve myself done the journey from junior to adult player and my positive experiences willl surely help me in my job as Junior Girl’s Manager in the Classic Family. It’s great to get to see the joy of playing and working as a team at first hand, Rantanen emphasizes.
– It has been heart-warming to experience the development on the girls’ side but now the time has come to partly hand over that responsibility to someone else. I could not think of anyone else to whom I would rather hand in the main responsibility. Although I will continue in some role helping her, says Irina Peltola, the Junior’s Manager in Classic.
Source: Floorball Club Classic
