Team Canada has been touring in France in preparation for the Men's Pan American Championships in Brazil (24-28 June). They based out of Saintes (France Div II) where National Team Member Alexis Bertand plays. Additionally, they played a tournament in Bordeaux. For more information check out the Canadian National Team Site http://www.canadianhandball.com/ and a player blog site: http://www.teamhandball.ab.ca/league.php?scriptName=LEAGUEINFO&leagueID=12092&leagueInfoID=55784
The USA has had teams tour Europe in the past. As funding dried up, so did the tours [they do cost money]. The poorer the reults in competitions, the lower the funding. [Which, of course, escalated the problem with results.] Many American athletes in the past put schooling and careers on hold to try and be "professional" even though they were not being compensated as pro athletes. And, to continue "beating a dead horse", every American kid's dream is to play basketball [NBA], baseball [MLB], American football [NFL], hockey [NHL], and to an lesser extent, soccer football [MLS], and even lacrosse [MLL]. Oops, forgot professional golf, tennis, and bowling. If athletes don't know about and/or haven't played handball, how can they "dream" to play on the National Team?
Hopefully, the summit this weekend will be a start toward at least returning to where we were 20 years ago, when we qualified for the 1988 Olympics in South Korea. It will be more difficult now with the strength in South America today, but hopefully we will get on the right track. Even if only 1/10th of 1% of the American population would play handball, that would be 300,000 people!