1995-96 National Women's Team

Pacific Rim Championship

Japan will look for improvements from their 1995 Pacific Women's Championship showing.

Their fourth place finish was not all that surprising, considering three of the world's top four squads take part in this competition, but what was disappointing was being out-scored 46-1 over five games.

Toru Itabashi heads the team again this year and he is joined by Takayuki Hattanda and Shunji Tanaka. At the 1996 Asian Games in February, Japan placed second behind China and ahead of Kazakhstan. They lost to China 9-3, but defeated Kazakhstan 6-2.

Of the 20 players they took to the Asian Games - the first 20 listed below - only four player personnel changes were made from the 1995 Pacific Championship team.

Canadians Wally Kozak and Rick Polutnik have been assisting the Japanese national team development program. Kozak was with the squad at the Î96 Asian Games, while Polutnik will accompany the team for a second consecutive year at the Pacific Women's Championship.

Japan has appeared in only one Women's World Championship, finishing eighth in 1990.

No Player

Birthdate

Ht

Wt

Club
Goaltenders/Gardiennes de but
1 Yuka Oda

15/03/73

5'3

114

Iwakura P.
2 Haruka Watanabe

13/12/72

5'5

114

Kokudo Ladies
Defence/Défense
3 Rie Sato

31/01/72

5'3

132

Iwakura P.
4 Akiko Hatanaka

23/04/75

5'4

125

Iwakura P.
5 Chie Sakuma

01/03/72

5'3

141

Iwakura P.
6 Maiko Obikawa

13/03/73

5'3

147

Iwakura P.
7 Satomi Ono

18/11/75

5'8

156

Iwakura P.
8 Yuiko Satomi

22/10/75

5'3

119

Sports System F.
9 Naho Yoshimi

31/01/72

5'3

123

Kokudo Ladies
Forwards/Avants
10 Masako Sato

09/06/73

5'3

128

Iwakura P.
11 Shiho Fujiwara

16/11/71

4'11

128

Iwakura P.
12 Miharu Araki

20/07/71

5'3

112

Iwakura P.
13 Mitsuko Igarashi

21/08/77

5'2

114

Iwakura P.
14 Akiko Iwase

12/11/78

5'2

106

Iwakura P.
15 Hanae Kubo

10/12/82

5'3

106

Kokudo Ladies
16 Yukari Ohno

10/08/75

5'6

136

Kokudo Ladies
17 Aki Sudo

20/01/75

5'

121

Rokkatei Bears
18 Yuki Togawa

28/02/78

5'

110

Rokkatei Bears
19 Akiko Naka

05/06/80

5'1

121

Sports System F.
20 Yoko Tamada

02/08/80

5'1

99

Rokaktei M.
           
Staff/Personnel
- Head Coach Toru Itabashi
- Coach Takayuki Hattanda
- Coach Shunji Tanaka
 
For more information:
André Brin Director, Communications | Directeur, relations médias

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