Woodfall already grasping Caps winning culture

Featured image: @taylorearnshaw.photog

Kai Woodfall joined the Brisbane Capitals to embrace their winning culture and they saw it first up to open NBL1 North season as basketball continues to offer him the best escape from a hectic work life as an emergency department doctor.

Woodfall wasn’t alone in his move from the South West Metro Pirates to the Capitals this off-season joining the likes of Brendan Teys, Ben Volkman and Jarred Bairstow who also looking for the move and wanted to embrace that culture at the Caps.

It's a Capitals club that has reached the past two Grand Finals in the NBL1 North and Woodfall and his Pirates teammates admired them from afar and as rivals, and it all worked out timing wise that they would join up with some of their long-time rivals to chase that championship dream.

>> NORTH SPOTLIGHT | CAPS WIN STUNNING GF REMATCH IN OT

>> NORTH WRAP | MEN'S ROUND 1

Woodfall continues to play at a high level including opening the season with a match-winning 33 points, eight assists and five rebounds while hitting 9/12 from three-point range with basketball providing him a great escape from his work life.

While coming up against full-time professional basketballers once he hits the court, Woodfall is currently working at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital where he's an emergency doctor in the critical care unit.

Life doesn’t get more full on than that, but he is glad to continue to have basketball as that escape and that first up overtime come from behind win on Saturday night against the Southern Districts Spartans showed why he's so happy to have joined the Capitals in 2026.

"We're a fully new group pretty much and have only kept some of the core of Caps guys but we've also brought in half of the Pirates roster as everyone's well aware so it's been really fun mixing the two groups," Woodfall said.

"All of us were already friends outside of the basketball so it's been really cool to get all us local guys together who have been friends and competing against each other for so long.

"Then you're always wondering how you'll go in that first game of the season and it feels like it always counts for a bit more because it's so important to get off to a good start.

"Then we were down a fair bit for a lot of the game so it was really important to our group and such a great moment for us to get that first win after joining those two local groups together for the first time."

Embracing Caps winning culture

Woodfall has nothing but good memories from his time at South West Metro and it's the longest he's ever played in his basketball career having first arrived back in 2020 on the back of finishing up his college career starting at Southwest Baptist and as a senior at Missouri Baptist.

He had a brief stint back home in Launceston at the North West Tasmania Thunder before making the move to Brisbane to first play with the Pirates in 2020.

That's been his basketball home ever since aside from a season at the Rockhampton Rockets in 2022, but he had always enjoyed his battles with the Capitals over the years and admired them from afar.

He then got together with some fellow experienced teammates like Teys, Bairstow and Volkman, and with the departures at the Capitals too after a second straight series loss in a Grand Final, Woodfall wanted to see that winning culture now from the inside.

"The Caps have a long history of being really successful and there's something to be said about clubs that have a culture of winning, and they definitely have that," Woodfall said.

"You saw that in our first game of the season already and you can grind out a win in very unlikely circumstances after we were down a fair bit for a lot of the game.

"Some clubs historically find ways to do it and Caps are one of those clubs so that's a testament to the guys who have been there for a long time who we are now getting a chance to play with.

"The big name players come and go from clubs, but the guys that are there year in, year out like Ant and even Tim Soong who's injured at the moment they are the ones that make up the culture of the place.

"That's something that I know I've really enjoyed already being part of that with the Caps culture and that's something that all the Pirates guys that have come across have spoken about.

"We wanted to be a part of that and what a better chance to do that while also getting to play with guys that are your friends – it's a win, win definitely for us."

Sharing the journey with Teys

One long-time teammate that Woodfall would have never made the move from the Pirates to the Capitals without is former Adelaide 36ers NBL captain Teys.

Woodfall never had that sort of veteran role model to learn from and develop alongside until he got to play with Teys, but their relationship goes well beyond on the basketball court.

He has now turned into one of his best friends in life at the same.

"Teysy and I have played together now for at least five years and we don't just do 5x5 together, we also play 3x3 on the world stage together as well and that all just started out of us being really good mates," Woodfall said.

"When I was a junior kid growing up, I was in Tassie and then went off to college and I didn’t actually play in many teams where I had guys who you would call a veteran guard who could take you under their wing and give you leadership.

"Interestingly, the one guy in my basketball career that has been that for me is Teysy and that was when I'd come back and were playing with the Pirates, and he was just so experienced and such a good leader.

"Obviously he's had such an amazing career and to come back and get to learn from him, and also become really good mates with him, is an absolute blessing.

"I couldn’t have asked for anything more really and it's been so good to get to play with him, but also be such good mates with him and to meet his family. Shoutout to Lori and his two kids, they're also just as big as legends as he is."

Studying medicine/working while still playing

For a lot of people, playing basketball at the level that Woodfall has been over the past decade where he was in college for four years, has been playing NBL1 ever since and been playing his trade globally on the 3x3 circuit would be more than enough to keep it occupied.

But all the while, he has been juggling that with his medicine studies at the University of Queensland and now working at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital ever since, and not only that but working in the most draining of areas in the emergency department.

It takes quite the special individual to be able to juggle both, but for Woodfall he actually feels like having that escape of the basketball is the best possible way to give him that emotional and mental outlet from what he's dealing with when at the hospital.

"There's definitely not any downtime really at all and it's funny because when I tell people at the hospital that I'm play semi-professional basketball I get a lot of funny looks," Woodfall said.

"Everyone is generally a bit shocked mainly because I'm short but I guess also because the time commitment is pretty huge. Med school was great and I went to the University of Queensland, and had a really good experience and they were really supportive especially with trying to manage away trips.

"Especially when Darwin was in the league and then still we have multiple road trips to go on every season so managing that and training they were always really good with that.

"And when I started work here at the Royal Brisbane where I'm doing critical care, it takes a little bit of logistical organising but they have been really great in their support of my basketball.

"Medicine is a job that takes a toll on you both time wise but also emotionally and mentally, and takes up a lot of your life.

"So I think it's actually really important to have something to help you escape that and I can't explain how good it is to go to practice to be with all your basketball mates who don't know what you've been doing and don't even want me to talk about it," he added.

"That's actually the best thing for my medical career as well because it gives me that escape where I can detach myself a few times a week and just focus on my basketball.

"I just feel really lucky with the full life I have with a great partner who I met through med school and with the work I'm doing and that I'm still able to play basketball."

Calling Tasmania or Brisbane home now

Woodfall isn’t exactly sure where he calls home right given he did spend most of his growing up in Tasmania before moving to Melbourne as a 17-year-old to continue to chase his basketball dream, and then head off to college for four years.

He has spent most of his life since in Brisbane and both his adopted home city and Tasmania always hold a special place in his heart, but it's hard for him to see himself ever leaving Queensland permanently given the life balance all-round he now has built for himself.

"It's really tough, I'd call both my home in different ways now. I left Tassie when I was only 17 and I went to Melbourne to continue getting elite level training after the Tasmanian Institute of Sport stopped supporting basketball at the time," Woodfall said.

"So I went to Ian Stacker's school who's obviously a legend of the game and coaching himself. Then after that I went off to college in America and have been in Brisbane ever since basically doing med school here and now working.

"I've been in Brisbane for nearly eight years now and I've got such a good friends base and have been playing basketball for a long time now so I feel home here.

"At the same time, I try and get back to Tassie a couple of times a year to see the family who are all still back there.

"Brissie is awesome and I can definitely see myself staying here for the long haul much to my family's dismay sometimes, but Tassie will always have a little place in my heart definitely."