If you follow the developments on the internet, you’ve surely heard about the phenomenal growth of YouTube.com: www.youtube.com This website allows anyone to post videos up to 10 minutes long on the web. A quick search of handball or balonmano (Spanish for Handball) in the YouTube search engine pulls us several items. Here’s a sampling:
– Norwegian club team showboats with multiple lobs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReLxWknKByM
– Anja Andersen Highlight Reel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG2Q5vB2Knk
– Highlights from 2004 European Championships in Slovenia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFgGIuWKHug
– Handball mix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kOjgYncaS4
– Lucky goal vs slow reacting goalie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4RZFLHFrUg
– What Matt Van Houten wished had happened at the 2004 US Nationals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yOoy9M2qIw
While these highlight reels are fun, this free service certainly could have other uses. Here are a couple of ideas for you entrepreneurs out there:
– Short tutorials on different aspects of the game: goalie techniques, drills, set plays, etc
– Highlights of games for targeted audiences: 5 minutes of video from the USA Cup, Club matches at National tournaments, award ceremonies, etc
John,
I've actually seen that clip before (not before the game in Houston in 04 though).
Ironically, it does not appear from the video that the goalie received any sanction whatsoever from the referee. I wonder how that can be reconciled with the thought process of the individual who was calling for me to be suspended from handball for a year for doing the same thing…?
I'd say that all kinds of things could have happened long after the video cuts out. The field referee is not even in the picture! Additionally, the court player was also throwing the ball behind his back. Also, since we're talking about unsportsmanlike conduct, it depends on the spirit in which the goalie did that: was his team fighting for a national title, fouling left right and center, provoking the referees and the audience and collecting cards and penalties, or was this an underdog team in a cup competition which was trying to upset the favorite, coming from one or two divisions higher? The same word or gesture can have very different meanings depending on the context.
Maybe this was just a friendly game (a fund-raiser perhaps?) between some selection "all-star" team and a local team for spectator entertainment? Maybe it was the "Harlem Globetrotters" of handball? You get fun games like that every now and then over here. The surroundings of the game (and the croud) reek of some less than serious point in the game and surely not a game over a national title with IHF referees and dignitaries on the stands.