Author Archives: John Ryan

Champions League Week 2 (Miguel's Picks)

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Here are Miguel's pick for week 2 of Champions League Group Play. Miguel is starting out with an imaginary bankroll of 1000 Euros and we will keep track of how he does throughout the season. We are still looking for another expert to participate. If you are interested please send us your four picks for the week along with your analysis and we will consider adding you to this feature.

07.10.2006 16:30 FC Barcelona (-7.5) – Hammarby (+7.5)
After a not-so-brilliant victory in Slovenia and a defeat at Valladolid last Wednesday, Barcelona will have to win to change this doubtful season beginning. Laszlo Nagy is back and Barcelona hasn't lost a home game at the Champions League in a very long time. Despite the fact that Hammarby is leading the Swedish league with authority and obtained an impressive 14 goal victory in the first champions league game, I think Barcelona will have an easy victory. [b]BET 200 Euros FC Barcelona[/b]

07.10.2006 18:00 HCM Constanta (-2.5) – GOG Svendborg TGI (+2.5)
This should be a tight game that will decide which team will go with Kiel into the next round. Betting is about taking risks sometimes, and although Constanta plays at home and Romania is never an easy trip for any team, I'd bet for Gudme this time. The Danish solid defense and fast-break could beat "Serbian-Romanian" slow handball control.
[b]BET 100 Euros GOG Gudme[/b]

07.10.2006 19:00 Montpellier HB (-8.5) – HC Portovik Yuzhny (+8.5)
Montpellier is already leading the French league and their powerful backcourt is in a very good shape (Bojinovic, Hman, Burdet, Sioud).The whole team seems to be getting better and better. The rookie Ukrainian team wasn't very impressive in the opening game and Montpellier is one of the toughest courts on which to get positive results. Should be an easy game for Montpellier.
[b]BET 100 Euros Montpellier[/b]

07.10.2006 20:00 BM. Valladolid (-10.5) – A1 Bregenz Handball (+10.5)
Valladolid must be in a cloud after being so close to defeat against Ciudad Real, beating the Ukrainians away, and their amazing victory against Barcelona last Wednesday. Unless they are too relaxed or overconfident, Bregenz has no chance; they are missing Wilczynski and Schlinger way too much from last season and were humiliated by Montpellier in the first game. The extremely fast and offensive game for Valladolid should give them a win by more than 10 goals. [b]BET 200 Euros Valladolid[/b]

Champions League Week 2 (Betting Lines)

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Courtesy of NordicBet www.nordicbet.com here are the lines for week 2 of the Champions League. (Please note that some of these lines are preliminary and may not yet be officially posted at the Nordic Bet site)

05.10.2006 18:45 THW Kiel (-9.5) – HC Banik Karvina H(+9.5)
05.10.2006 20:30 VfL Gummersbach (-9.5) – Sandefjord TIF H(+9.50)

07.10.2006 15:00 Brest HC Meshkov (+2.5) – SC Pick Szeged (-2.5)
07.10.2006 16:15 Fotex KC Veszprém (-11.5) – Povazska Bystrica (+11.5)
07.10.2006 16:15 KIF Kolding (-7.5) – Wisla Plock (+7.5)
07.10.2006 16:30 FC Barcelona (-7.5) – Hammarby (+7.5)
07.10.2006 18:00 HCM Constanta (-2.5) – GOG Svendborg TGI (+2.5)
07.10.2006 19:00 Montpellier HB (-8.5) – HC Portovik Yuzhny (+8.5)
07.10.2006 20:00 BM. Valladolid (-10.5) – A1 Bregenz Handball (+10.5)

08.10.2006 15:00 Panellinios AC Athens (+2.5) – RK Gold Club Kozina (-2.5)
08.10.2006 16:15 RK "Bosna" Sarajevo (+6.5) – Portland San Antonio (-6.5)
08.10.2006 16:45 RK Zagreb (-3.5) – Chehovski Medvedi (+3.5)
08.10.2006 17:15 Celje Pivovarna Lasko (-11.5) – Fram Reykjavik (+11.5)
08.10.2006 17:15 RK Metalurg Skopje (+6.5) – SG Flensburg-Handewitt (-6.5)
08.10.2006 17:30 Crvena Zvezda Beograd (-2.5) – Chambery Savoie (+2.5)
08.10.2006 18:10 Ciudad Real (+9.5) – Kadetten Schaffhausen (-9.5)

USA Women’s Team to Play International Friendly vs Sweden

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The USA Women’s National Team has announced that they will be traveling to Sweden in December for matches against several Swedish Club teams, as well as the Swedish National Team. The trip is in preparation for their upcoming Pan American Games qualification series against Canada in January 2007. For more detail on the trip and their plans for the upcoming season follow this link to their official press release: http://www.usateamhandballwomen.com/News/Oct4_06.php

Dujshebaev Comes Out of Retirement

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Due to a rash of injuries, Talant Dujshebaev has changed titles from Ciudad Real coach to player-coach. 38 year old Dujshebaev can certainly still play as he had a pivotal role in Ciudad Real’s victory last weekend against Pick Szeged.

EHF Report: http://championsleague.eurohandball.com/index.asp?page=20071071X,1307#scroll
Ciudad Real Report (in Spanish): http://www.balonmanociudadreal.net/noticia.php?id=674
Wikipedia Entry (in Spanish): http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talant_Dujshebaev

Champions League Wrap Up (Week 1)

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The first weekend was mostly true to form, with only a few minor surprises. As expected, all of the 1st or 2nd seeded teams won their games vs 3rd or 4th seeded teams and in most cases by large margins. There were, however a few surprises elsewhere, with Group C’s #2 seed Kolding (Denmark) easily beating #1 Chambery in France, by a score of 32-26 being the biggest. Kolding, was a 1.5 goal underdog going into the match, but clearly dominated Chambery in all phases of the game. There were also a few outright wins by #4 seed vs #3 seeds: Romania’s Constanta’s victory over Banik Karvina in the Czech Republic and Sarajevo’s win over Bystrica in Slovakia.

Next weekend’s key matchups:
Group C: KIF Kolding Elite A/S (DEN) vs Wisla Plock S.A. (POL): Both teams are coming off big wins and will battle it out for first place in Group C
Group C: Crvena Zvezda Beograd (SRB) vs Chambery Savoie HB (FRA): Gut check time for Jackson Richardson and company. Belgrade is the 4th seeded team and were beaten soundly by Wisla Plock, but playing in Belgrade is always a challenge.
Group E: C.S. HCM Constanta (ROM) vs GOG Svendborg TGI Gudme (DEN): Svendborg will try and bounce back from a home loss to Kiel. Constanta, the 4th seed will try to make it to 2-0 in front of a home crowd.
Group G: FC Barcelona-Cifec (ESP) vs Hammarby IF HB (SWE) : Battle for first place in Group H
Group A: RK "Bosna" Sarajevo (BIH) vs Portland San Antonio (ESP): 4th seeded Sarajevo will try to go 2-0 in Group A against top seeded Portland San Antonio. Portland will be a big favorite, but a road trip to Sarajevo is never easy.
Group D: RK Zagreb (CRO) vs Chehovskie Medvedi (RUS): Top seeded Zagreb needs to defend home court against the top team from Russia

Handball Betting Experts Needed

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We are planning to add a regular betting column to the website and are looking for two Handball experts willing to predict Champions League matches in the coming weeks. The plan is for each expert to start with 1000 Euros and for them to make 4 picks each week with bets of either 100 or 200 Euros. Each expert will also be expected to provide a couple of sentences explaining the rationale behind their picks. If you are interested in participating, please send me an email with your proposed picks for the first round of games, along with your short analysis as to why you are making the picks. Here are the lines (courtesy of NordicBet.com www.nordicbet.com ) for this weekend’s matches:

30.09.2006 15:00 Chehovski Medvedi (-7.5) – RK Metalurg Skopje H(+7.5)
30.09.2006 16:00 Portland San Antonio(-3.5) – Fotex KC Veszprém H(+3.5)
30.09.2006 16:15 SC Pick Szeged (+3.5) – Ciudad Real H(-3.5)
30.09.2006 17:00 Hammarby IF HB (-7.5) vs Panellinios AC Athens (+7.5)
30.09.2006 17:15 RK Gold Club Kozina (+5.5) vs FC Barcelona-Cifec (-5.5)
30.09.2006 18:00 Kadetten Schaffhausen (-2.5) vs Brest HC Meshkov (+2.5)
30.09.2006 18:00 Povazska Bystrica (-2.5) – RK "Bosna" Sarajevo H(+2.5)
30.09.2006 18:55 Sandefjord TIF(+4.5) – Celje Pivovarna Lasko H(-4.5)
30.09.2006 19:00 Chambery Savoie HB (-1.5) vs KIF Kolding Elite A/S (+1.5)
30.09.2006 20:15 A1 Bregenz Handball (+3.5) – Montpellier HB H(-3.5)
01.10.2006 10:30 HC Banik Karvina (-2.5) – HCM Constanta H(+2.5)
01.10.2006 16:20 GOG Svendborg TGI (+4.5) – THW Kiel H(-4.5)
01.10.2006 16:20 Fram Reykjavik (+5.5) – VfL Gummersbach H(-5.5)
01.10.2006 17:30 HC Portovik Yuzhny(+5.5) – BM. Valladolid H(-5.5)

Send us your 4 picks prior to Saturday at 1500. We will review then review the entries and pick the 2 predictors who do the best job, both predicting winners and explaining their reasons for picking the winners. Depending on the quality of the input and interest that is generated we may even start a weekly podcast with the two predictors discussing their selections. Thanks.

Send your picks and write-ups to editors@teamhandballnews.com

Sorting out Handball on TV (Broadcast Rights and Coverage)

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The addition of several broadcasts of Champions League on Eurosport 2 is only good news if you have access to Eurosport 2. Living in France one would think this would be a simple matter of calling your cable company to add that channel to your contract. Unfortunately, my current provider, Noos, doesn’t have Eurosport 2 as an option. Oh well, I thought, it’s just a simple matter of switching to another provider. A bit of a hassle, but probably worth it. But then, I discovered that there is no provider in France that offers both Sport Plus (which has the rights for the French club games in the Champions league) and Eurosport 2. So, instead I would have to pay for an entirely new setup in order to receive only 1 more channel. Argggh!

While doing this research, I also found out some interesting facts about Handball on TV in the world, such as:

1) The EHF (or the IHF) often sells the TV rights to an event to a media company. For instance, the EHF sold the European Championships for National Teams to Infront sports. http://www.infrontsports.com/mediarights/european-handball.html Infront sports then sells the rights piecemeal throughout the world, usually on a country by country basis. These rights also include internet broadcasts and this unfortunately makes it less likely that there will be free internet broadcasts. The EHF might have a long term market broadening interest to promote the sport, but Infront, as the middleman, will simply try and squeeze as much revenue out of the TV rights as possible.

2) Internet broadcast rights can be regionalized and this is already being done for other sports like rugby that are also available on local television markets. The idea being that the local television market doesn’t want internet competition. I would argue, however, that the difference in video quality is so great that very few people won’t shell out the money for TV if it’s available. Hopefully, if concerns about the internet siphoning off too many viewers becomes too great the EHF will regionalize their internet broadcasts to places like the United States where matches are not available on TV.

3) As best I can tell the TV rights for the Champions League are being sold directly by the EHF and are probably a complex hodge-podge of contracts. Each country has their own TV networks, varying fan interest, and varying ability to pay. For instance, fan interest is probably pretty high in Eastern Europe, but the market price there is probably lower than it is in some Western Europe countries with a higher standard of living. This has got to be an incredible headache for the EHF marketing staff. There are certainly some economies of scale when you consider that leagues like the NFL can sell one contract for 300 Million people in the US.

4) Handball is available on TV in more places in the world then you might think. Courtesy of Canal Satellite, Handball is broadcast to French territories and French speaking regions in the Caribbean, Africa and the South Pacific. For instance, as parts of North America are within the Caribbean satellite footprint, in theory, those signals would be available to anyone with a contract with Canalsat. You would probably need to pretend to be ordering from one of the countries listed on the website. http://www.canalsatellite-caraibes.com/, but it could probably be done. It wouldn’t surprise me if some French expats in Florida have actually done so. Perhaps the same thing could also be done in Australia for the New Caledonia feed. And best that I can tell, the English language broadcasts on Eurosport 2 can also be picked up by anyone in Europe with a sky satellite contract and the appropriate sports package.

Champions League Team Handball (Live and in English)

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The EHF recently signed a deal with Eurosport that will greatly increase the number of Champions League matches that will be shown on TV this season. http://championsleague.eurohandball.com/index.asp?page=20071071X,1283#scroll
Eurosport 2 is available in several European countries and is broadcast to the UK in English. The EHF has not yet responded to several requests concerning their plans this season for internet streaming. Hopefully, since everything written on their website is in English, they will also switch to English language broadcasts. Eurosport Commentator Paul Bray will be providing the English language commentary and provided the following schedule (subject to change):

Thursday 28 September 19.30-21.00 Wisla Plock vs Beograd
Thursday 28 September 21.00-22.15 Flensburg vs RK Zagreb (Taped)
Sunday 1 October 16.30-18.00 Portovik Yuzhny vs Valladolid
Sunday 1 October 18.00-19.30 Fram Reykjavik vs Gummersbach
Thursday 5 October 17.45-19.15 Live Match
Saturday 7 October 19.00-20.30 Live Match
Sunday 8 October 16.15-17.45 Live Match
Thursday 12 October 17.45-19.15 Live Match
Saturday 14 October 18.15-19.45 Live Match
Sunday 15 October 15.15-16.45 Live Match
Thursday 19 October 19.30-21.00 Live Match
Thursday 19 October 21.00-22.00 Taped Match
Saturday 21 October 19.15-20.45 Live Match
Sunday 22 October 09.30-11.00 Live Match

ESPN’s Olympic Athlete Attempts to Make USA Women’s National Team

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ESPN’s “Olympic Athlete,” Kathryne Bertine, will be writing about her experience this past August trying out for the US Women’s National Team Handball squad. Bertine is a former figure skater, rower, and triathlete who’s always had Olympic dreams and has been hired by ESPN to chronicle her attempts to try and find a spot on the 2008 Olympic Team.

The premise behind the writing assignment as highlighted at ESPN.com: “Maybe you can identify with this. Some ESPN.com editors were sitting around watching the two-man luge event during the 2006 Winter Olympics. "Hey, I could do that," one of us said. "Anybody halfway athletic could do that." At that moment, an idea was born: What would happen if a better-than-average-but-not-great athlete, who also happened to be able to write, tried to make the U.S. Olympic team in the Summer Games' equivalent of the two-man luge?”

Her full write up on her first experience, trying out for Modern Pentathlon is here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=olympianpart1&lpos=spo

Her Personal Website: www.kathrynbertine.com

We’ll link to her handball article when it’s posted at ESPN.

Weekend Tournaments vs Structured League Play

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When Europeans are introduced to Team Handball in the United States they are often puzzled by the lack of structured league play as this is totally different from the organization they are familiar with. Instead of a double round robin of season long league competition (one game a weekend), the US model is often to get in your car Friday night, drive 5 hours, play 6 games over two days, drive your aching body back home Sunday night. That is if you didn’t have to shell out $300 for plane tickets.

In terms of why the US has featured weekend tournaments the reasons are principally related to geography, lack of club commitments and organization.

Geography, of course, is related to the costs of travel. Quite simply, it is less practical for amateur clubs to travel vast distances for one or two matches. The logic being that if you’re going to travel 6 hours to play handball you might as well get your time and money’s worth. The lack of club commitments and organization also steers more organized clubs to prefer tournaments that they organize and control independently. If you host the tournament, charge entry fees and do the organization, you don’t have to worry about other less organized clubs failing to commit to reciprocate properly. Additionally, many clubs can throw together a team for one weekend, but simply don’t have the organization or facilities to host a game. On top of all these reasons, the European model of a national federation playing a primary role in organizing leagues doesn’t apply in the US for other more established sports, let alone handball.

While I won’t argue in favor of totally adopting the European model https://teamhandballnews.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.12
onto a nation with different sporting traditions and a vastly different geography (i.e. the US is huge), I will argue that we definitely need more leagues in the US. The recent trends have been positive with 3 leagues operating last year and more recently the alliance formed between the Quebec league and the North East Team Handball Conference. With the new alliance not every team is going to play every other team twice and the match schedule some weekends is too busy, but despite those shortcomings it has the makings of quite a good competition. The teams involved must think so. Especially Alberta, which is making 3 plane flights 2000 miles east to participate! In fact, I would argue that winning this season long league is more prestigious than winning either the Canadian or American long weekend National Championships. Hopefully, other parts of the US will see the success of the NETHC/Quebec Alliance and it will spur further league development.

In fact, it’s still only September, so there’s still time to organize league play for this season. A rhetorical question, but wouldn’t it make more sense for Carolina, ATH, the Condors, Houston Clubs, and Miami to organize a league instead of their own individual tournaments?

Circuit Elite Quebecois and North East Conference Announce Alliance

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Canada’s Quebec League and the US North East Team Handball Conference (NETHC) have announced that they will form an alliance starting with the 2006-07 Season.

The Men’s teams will split into two leagues of 6 teams, split primarily along National boundaries (Chaudiere 2 will play with the 5 US teams). Each team will play the 5 teams within in its own league twice and the 6 teams in the other league once, for a total of 16 games. The top 4 teams from each league will then qualify for an end of season knockout tournament in April

The Women’s teams will consist of two divisions. The senior division will be organized similar to last year with the USA Women’s National Team as the only US participant. A lower division will be split into a US League of 5 teams and a Canadian League of 4 teams. Teams in the US League will play each other twice and the Canadian teams once. In the Canadian League the teams will play each other three times and the American teams once.

NETHC Website: http://www.nethc.org/
Quebec League Website (in French): http://www.handball-elite.com/

Full text of the merger announcement:

PROJECT
Alliance between the NETHC and the Quebec League

PROPOSAL

The alliance between two leagues: The “Northeast Team Handball Conference” (in USA) and the ‘Circuit Québécois’ (CANADA), which will allow inter-league games between the participating teams of each league.

RESPONSIBLE OF THE ALLIANCE

Commissioner of the NETHC: Christian Latulippe
Coordinator of the Quebec League: Michelle Lortie
Responsible of the referees in USA: Bruce Mosberg
Responsible of the referees in Canada: To be named
Responsible of the NETHC website: Kathy Darling
Responsible of the Statistics (Quebec League):

NUMBER OF INTERESTED TEAM FOR THE SEASON 2006-2007

On the men side, the alliance will have 12 teams divided in 2 leagues

Circuit Québécois (Men)
Champlain 1
Chaudière 1
Alberta
Champlain 2
Montreal
Sherbrooke

NETHC (Men)
New York Cty
Chaudiere 2
New Jersey
New England
Cortland

On the women side, the alliance will have 9 teams divided in 2 leagues.

Circuit Québécois (Women)
Chaudière
Sherbrooke
Laurier
Laval

NETHC (Women)
University of North Carolina
West Point Gold
USA ‘B’
West Point Black
Cortland

Please note that the ‘Circuit Québécois senior on the women side will remain similar to last year with the following teams: Champlain, Montreal, USA, Laval, Drummondville, Granby, Chaudière, Sherbrooke and Champlain 2.

REGULAR SEASON SCHEDULE

Each team will play the following number of games:

Circuit Québécois and NETHC (men) = 16 games (two games against each team of their league and 1 game against the teams of the other league)
NETHC (women) = 12 games (2 games against each team of their league and 1 game against the teams of the other league).
Circuit Québécois (women) = 14 games (3 games against each team of their league and 1 game against the teams of the other league).

For the NETHC games, the game schedule will be divided in weekend tournaments held between October and March, where each team will play 3 to 4 games per tournament. Only Alberta and University of North Carolina will play all their games during 3 tournaments.

The game schedule should allow each team to travel early Saturday morning and to comeback at a decent time late Sunday night, for example: Saturday games at 12:00, 13:30, 15:00, 16:30, 18:00 et 19:30 and Sunday games at 9:00, 10:30 et 12:00. When Alberta and University of North Carolina come to play, it is possible that they will play a game early Saturday morning.

Each team based in the Northeast Region will have a chance to host one of the tournaments. The team responsible will be asked by the league to provide the date when they can host a tournament. The commissioner will then decide the schedule.

PLAYOFF

On the men side, the top 4 teams of each league will participate to the playoff tournament, April 14-15, 2006. This year, a coin toss had decided that the final tournament will be hosted by the NETHC. See the schedule for the detail.

On the women side, the top 4 teams of the NETHC only will participate to the playoff tournament, April 14-15, 2006.

The playoff tournament will have to be played on an official size Team Handball court (40m x 20m).

LEAGUE ENTRY FEE

The NETHC entry fee will be calculated in function of the number of games played in the league. The cost per game was established at $85. This fee pays the referees, the organization of the league (website and so on) as well as the awards.

NETHC (Men) = 16 games x 85$ = 1360$US
NETHC (Women) = 12 matches x 85$ = 1020$US

* The entire league entry fee must be paid before the first game.

MEMBERSHIP CARD FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE LEAGUE
Each American player, coach and referee participating in the league will have to be a member of the Northeast Team Handball Conference. The cost of the membership will be 20$US, no matter the age of the player.
The membership card will provide a special risk accident & liability insurance for the league officials and the athletes participating in the league.
GAMES RULES
IHF Rules of Competition will be observed unless stated by specific tournament modifications. The IHF Rules can be found on the Web page: http://www.ihf.info/
GAME FORMAT
Game Time 2 x 30 minutes
Time-out One time-out per half (60 seconds)
Overtime Only during play-off (2 x 5 minutes, twice, then Shootout)
Half time 10 minutes
Forfeit Failure to arrive by game time will result in a forfeit
Protest rules
• Protest must be based on a rule application, not a referee’s individual judgment
• The protest fee is $50, which must be paid up-front to the Competition Committee, as well as your protest in writing. The protest fee is refundable only in the case where the protest in upheld.
PLAYER ELIGIBILITY
For a player to be eligible to play in the league, he/she must:
• Be a member of the ‘Fédération Québécoise de Handball Olympique’ or of the Northeast Team Handball Conference» at least 24 hours before his/her first game. The coaches will have to register their players online on the league website. A date and an hour will give to the commissioners the exact time of the registration. The player lists will be available online for all the teams
• The commissioners will handle eligibility infractions on a case-by-case situation. However, any ineligible player found to have played would result in at least a forfeit and a loss for that game. Further penalties (such as fines) will also be applied by the commissioners.
• Players must be on the roster before January 31st, 2007 and play at least one game before March 1st, 2007, in order to be eligible to play in the PLAYOFF.
• Note that a player can only appear on one roster list.

OFFICIALS
The referee responsible in USA will be responsible for scheduling the referees for all league games. Host teams will not be required scheduling officials; however they will be required to provide timekeeper and scorekeeper. The referees will receive 25$ per game. Transportation, hotel and a per diem will also be allowed to the referees.

EHF to Alter Champions League Format

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The EHF has concluded their recent Executive Committee meeting. A couple of notes and analysis concerning their meeting report: http://home.eurohandball.com/ehf_files/ehf_news/sr_exec1609/default.htm

Champions League: Next season's format will be altered after the first phase of group play. Instead of proceeding immediately to 2 game aggregate knock-out play, the top two teams in each group will now be placed into 4 new groups of 4 teams. The EHF write-up then indicates that semifinals and finals will follow. The EHF write-up, however, makes no mention as to whether matches will be moved from weekend to midweek to appease German and Spanish Leagues threats to start an alternate competition.

Dispute with IHF: Nothing new to report, but the somewhat mocking reference to the IHF's "so called World Club League" certainly seems to indicate that the EHF is drawing some firm positions. It will be interesting to see how the IHF responds.