The defending U.S. National Club champions, New York City Team Handball will take on a Bundesliga All Star team featuring Stefan Lovgren, Ljubomir Vranjes, Peter Gentzel, Henning Fritz and others. The match will take place on 3 January, 2010 as part of the first ever Big Apple Handball Tournament. This match will be a one off event separate from the tournament itself which will take place from 2-3 January. Participating in the actual tournament will be NY City and 5 teams from Germany. The 6 teams will be divided into two pools of 3 teams. Round robin games will be played on the 2nd and semifinal/placement games, as well as the all star game, will be played on the 3rd.

As to why this New York City tournament will, with the exception of the host, essentially be a transplanted German event, Shkumbin Mustafa, President of New York City THC, indicated that the German travel company, TR Travel, was the principal sponsor of the event while NYCTH was responsible for organizing the tournament. Due to time constraints and the space limitations of the gym facility two additional German teams even had to be turned away. Mustafa also emphasized that the New York City THC focus for this event will be to expose Handball to their developing youth programs. He also noted that they have tentative plans to host a tournament for American and Canadian clubs later this year.

NYC Team Handball Big Apple: -link-