The Pan American Team Handball Federation (PATHF) had a Congressional Meeting in November in which a number of issues concerning Handball in the Americas were discussed. In particular the schedule, location and national participation of several upcoming tournaments were decided upon. Arguably, organizing these tournaments is the most important thing that the PATHF does as these tournaments decide ultimately who qualifies for the Olympic Games, PANAM Games, and the World Championships.

Of particular note, were a number of decisions/votes surrounding the Men’s 2nd Chance Qualification Tournament for the PANAM Games. As reported on our website, a previous PATHF Congress apparently had decided that the 4th place Central American and Caribbean Nation team would have the right to host this tournament.
THN Article: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?extend.59
Canadian Federation Newsletter: http://www.handball.ca/newsletters/77.doc

Dennis Berkholtz’s report http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=73440975&blogID=200075136&MyToken=2f477c74-a2bb-4d20-a2bc-e36c2ac09af5 from the recent Congress highlights some of the discussion that took place:

“The sites of the Pan American Second Round Qualification Games were determined by a vote of membership. There was some discussion led by Manoel Oleveria that at the past Congress the first right of refusal to host the event should go the Central. No discussion followed and a vote was taken and Puerto Rico's offer to host the games was first ignored, then defeated by vote.”

So, this description of events seems to indicate that either of the following occurred:
1) The PATHF Congress [i][b]decided[/b][/i] to give the Central region the right to host at the previous Congress, but then decided to just override that earlier decision with a new vote or….
2) The PATHF [i][b]discussed[/b][/i] giving the Central Region the right to host at the previous Congress, but didn’t really make a decision. Hence, the need for a vote on host selection.

Either of those depictions of events is, of course, unacceptable. If the Congress makes a decision it should stand by it unless there is some legitimate and compelling reason to change the decision. If recent history (Canada’s exclusion from the 2006 Championships: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?extend.75 ) is a guide, the PATHF standard for a legitimate and compelling reason to change is pretty high.

If the previous Congress, in fact, simply discussed giving the Central Region the right to host, then it should be clear to everyone involved that no decision in fact had been made. Based on the earlier Canadian report of the meeting and the fact that the PATHF President brought the topic up at this meeting it seems that there was no consensus on what had previously taken place.

The impact of this decision to put the tournament in Chile, as opposed to Puerto Rico, is huge for the nations involved. Puerto Rico has the biggest impact as they are now traveling and no longer playing at home. Venezuela and the Canada/USA loser were traveling anyway, but it’s now an extra 3,000 thousand miles and probably twice as expensive to fly to Santiago as opposed to nearby Puerto Rico. Needless to say, the benefit to Chile is obvious. They are no longer traveling and they will be playing at home. A cynical person might even simply think that this was a South American coup.

[b]Fixing the Problem[/b]
Once again, this sort of confusion and apparent lack of transparency could be cleared up with a PATHF website with the following information readily available for all:
– An official schedule of all upcoming tournaments
– Regulations for host selection, team participation and scheduling of tournaments
– Regulations for tournament procedures (seeding, format, etc)
– Minutes highlighting the key decisions of PATHF Executive Committee and Congressional Meetings

[b]Side Notes[/b]
– It also appears that the criteria for the nations being selected for the 2nd chance tournaments has changed. For the Men, Honduras has been replaced by Venezuela. For the Women, Puerto Rico has been replaced by El Salvador. Using the originally posted format Puerto Rico should have already qualified by virtue of their 3rd place Central American and Caribbean placement. Of course, the website could clear up this confusion as well.
– Seeding and the format for the upcoming Women’s Pan American Championships should be handled very transparently. As 4 teams will qualify for the World Championships the seeding and placement of teams into their respective pools is very important. In fact, serious consideration should be given to using a tournament format that ensures that 4th place is not awarded to a team by the simple luck of a fortunate draw.

The good news is that the PATHF report indicates that a website will be available soon.

You might think I added Eurosport 2 to my cable lineup, so I could watch more Team Handball. https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.165 No, I actually got it for the Kabbadi and Sepaktakraw. More Handball is just a nice bonus. In all seriousness, last Thursday night after watching Kiel trounce Chambery (as expected) and the French Women beat Denmark (definitely, not expected), I found myself back on Eurosport 2 mesmerized by 2 sports I never even knew existed.

First up was the Asian Games Men’s Gold Medal match for Sepaktakraw between Thailand and Malaysia. This sport can best be described as 3 man volleyball/hackysack with your feet. Clearly a finesse sport in which timing is everything. Thailand had little problem taking care of the Malaysians. For more on this sport check out these links:
http://www.doha-2006.com/gis/menuroot/sports/Sepaktakraw.aspx
http://www.doha-2006.com/gis/menuroot/news/article.aspx?id=16326

Next up was Kabaddi which I will describe as a cross between “red rover, red rover“, and full contact tag. Each team starts with 7 players and is played on a court about the size of a volleyball court. Teams take turns sending a “raider” to the other side of the court where he tries to touch the players on the other team and then run back to half court before they tackle him. Oh, and did I forget to mention when you are a raider you have to hold your breath and to prove this you have to keep chanting kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi over and over. I am not making this up! India took care of Pakistan for the Gold Medal. For more info check on these links:
http://www.doha-2006.com/gis/menuroot/sports/Kabaddi.aspx
http://www.doha-2006.com/gis/menuroot/news/article.aspx?flag=1&pagenum=1&id=16264

So, if you think this is pretty “off topic” for a website called TeamHandballNews.com, you’re absolutely right, but I do have a couple of points, mostly for the benefit of anyone who lives in a country where Handball is well known.

– In more countries than you might think, Handball is only slightly more well known than these sports. As someone who has literally spent half his life explaining Team Handball as Soccer with your hands, Water Polo without water or Lacrosse without sticks, you can see how difficult it can be to develop a sport with little name recognition. I’m sure there are dedicated fans of these sports who do the same thing.

– For those who would like to see Handball become a more prominent sport world wide, this underscores how critical television exposure is. Somewhere in the world where Eurosport is shown there are probably a couple hundred new Kabaddi and Sepaktakraw players simply because they were exposed to the sport for the first time. I for one won’t run out and play the game, but you give me a choice between 2nd Division French League Soccer and Kabaddi, I’m watching the Kabaddi.

Disclaimer: European Club Handball is quite simply and unquestionably the best in the World. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some glaring problems that should be fixed. In my first installment https://teamhandballnews.com/2006/08/whats-wrong-with-european-club-handball-part-1-the-disparity-from-top-to-bottom/ I addressed the huge disparity between the top and bottom teams in the Champions League and the National Leagues. With only a couple of upsets in group play and no surprises among the 16 teams that advanced in this year’s Champions League the analysis continues to stand up. In this installment I address the presentation and arena shortcomings.

It’s More than a Game

I know this might sound sacrilegious to purists, but in a world where customers have many other options for their entertainment, sporting and non-sporting, this is a harsh reality. I’ll give you a personal anecdote that highlights some of the problems.

Last season after France’s dominating victory over Spain in the European Championships I noticed that Montpellier (France’s top club team) was coming to the Paris region to take on Ivry in a key French League matchup. Knowing that Ivry’s gym only seats around 1,500 I figured I better order my tickets ahead of time, so I logged on to Ivry’s web page to get ticket information. Of course, you couldn’t get a ticket on line (maybe next year), but they did have a phone number and I found out that you could purchase tickets at the gym ahead of time. This is OK for someone living in Ivry, but Ivry is a 1 hour round trip from where I live in Paris. So, I took my chances and showed up 45 minutes before game time. Bad decision! As I soon found outside the gym where several hundred people waited in line behind one ticket booth and one person selling tickets. As you might expect, I and several other people were shut out as they ran out of tickets about 10 minutes after the game started.

So my experience with Ivry was negative outside the gym, but I’ve also not been impressed when I’ve gotten inside the gym for Handball and Basketball games in Europe. For many people like me just seeing a good match, and I’ve seen some great ones, is enough. But my wife and daughters and other more casual fans would be bored silly at these matches because they generally lack the amenities that are commonplace with an American Sporting experience. Whether it’s a snack bar with appealing food and drink, a jumbotron screen, a friendly mascot walking around for the kids, cheerleaders or simply a comfortable seat these sorts of things are usually lacking. And I’m just left scratching my head and wondering, “Have these people ever seen a regular season NBA match. It would just rock their world.”

“19250!” Or Yawn, That’s Just Another Night in Sacramento

As I highlighted in the previous section the game itself can be great, but everything else surrounding the game can be lacking. And the underlying reason is that the arena itself is usually a small aging facility that would have been torn down years ago in the US. In fact I would estimate that in the US there are probably around 250 arenas larger and newer than just about every club handball arena in Europe. Certainly ever one of the 30 NBA and 30 NHL arenas (I realize there is some overlap here) are superior and there are probably about 200 NCAA collegiate arenas in the same category. Maybe the US has overdone it, but the counter argument is that those arenas are often full. And maybe the Europeans are sensibly getting by with modest arenas that work just fine for their local clubs. There probably is a little of truth in both arguments, but mostly it depends greatly on your perspective. I will argue that at least some Europeans are coming around to the American perspective. Case in point: Here’s the title of a January 2006 article in French Magazine, HandAction, “19,250.” The title refers to the attendance at a Gummersbach-Kiel regular season game that was played at the Cologne Arena (arguably the only arena in Europe comparable to a typical NBA arena). More revealing then the pictures of the match at Cologne Arena, though, were the side by side pictures of where Gummersbach plays it other matches (against the bottom of the league teams) in a life-less gym that looks like an aircraft hangar.

Of course my American reaction to the title of the article was simple amusement. They get a crowd like this for one match and it’s a cause for celebration? Why that’s just a typical sell out crowd in Sacramento. And a little research does in fact show that the Sacramento Kings of the NBA currently have an ongoing streak of 317 consecutive sell-outs of their 17,317 capacity ARCO Arena. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento_Kings So it is a couple thousand seats short, but you get the picture. And trust me if you’ve ever been to Sacramento (or Portland or San Antonio), you’d probably agree with me that there are more than a few cities in Europe approaching this wonderful metropolis in terms of infrastructure and population base.

Now, there are a number of reasons as to why the amenities are lacking and the arenas are smaller. But, the underlying reason is that the overall structure of club sports in Europe with multiple leagues in multiple nations spreads the product out too thinly. The clubs only have so much budget and amenities and arenas aren’t where they are going to spend it. Case in point, is the Paris metropolitan area with 5 LNH teams (Paris, Ivry, Creteil, Pontault-Combault and Tremblay) all within an hour’s drive or less from each other. What if those 5 teams were to combine budgets and form one club? I’d expect that not only could they field one of the better teams in Europe, I’d bet they could they play their games in a nice little 5,000 seat arena and hire some more people to work the ticket booth. But even if you could get those 5 teams to combine, because they’re playing in the geographically restricted French League, you’d have to find 4 more teams, probably in smaller towns to play against and those teams would not provide good competition for the new big club. Of course, you’d have some Champions League games, but as its currently structured it doesn’t have enough games to support the needed revenue stream.

So, what’s the solution? I’ll save that manifesto for another day. Stay tuned.