Promoting Team Handball in nations where the sport struggles for any media attention can be a challenge. In fact, in these nations any article in a mainstream news outlet about the sport is usually a cause of minor celebration. As a result of not being covered, national and regional federations, as well as clubs, usually do a fair amount of self promotion. I’ve written a few times about how important this is https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.540, and about how sometimes the self reporting has been a little bit misleading https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.787.

Recently, the Alberta Women’s team travelled to Chicago to participate in the Windy City tournament. As part of their self-reporting the team posted 5 video blogs on Youtube http://www.teamhandball.ab.ca/league.php?scriptName=LEAGUEINFO&leagueID=12092&leagueInfoID=47877 (Scroll to the bottom). For the uninitiated, a video blog can perhaps best be described as informal video containing information similar to what you might read in a written blog post. In Alberta’s case the video blogs were part travelogue, part “shout out” to the folks back home, and part recaps of the club’s matches. If I were in charge the content provided would have been more related to the matches, but I highly doubt that I was part of the targeted demographic.

So while I might have changed what was recorded, I am intrigued by the possibilities it presents for clubs and federations. As some theoretical examples of what could have been, consider the USA Women’s trip to Poland, the Canadian Men’s Team trip to the Dominican Republic or Australia’s upcoming participation in the World Championships. 5 minutes of recording, consisting of game footage, post game interviews, and sure, why not a little bit of travelogue would be greatly appreciated by the fans back home. And, if we’re thinking about targeted demographics these types of videos are bound to enhance recruiting as perspective players (ages 12-20) get a better glimpse of just what an opportunity these trips are.

Now some of you might say that players travelling on national team trips to important competitions don’t have time to be recording and editing video. Instead they should be resting or preparing for the next match. To which, I say, “Pullease, give me a break!” Maybe things have changed since I took a couple of overseas trips, but I still fondly remember never having more free time to read and play cards in my entire life. Amongst 12-15 players and support staff the workload to create video and web posts would not be overwhelming. More likely, there’s bound to be 1 or 2 tech savvy folks that probably would have to be pulled away from doing it. I contacted the primary creator of the Alberta postings, Sara Cyrankiewicz, and she indicated that she spent about 30 minutes or so editing each clip. Factor in that she’s done it a few times and we’re probably talking about 2-3 hours of “work” for a team before they get better at it through practice.

So the question for Federations out there shouldn’t be, “Can we do it?” Instead, the question should be, “Why aren’t we?”

THN (Jul 2008): Australian Junior Women In Macedonia: Getting Beat on the Court, but Reporting on it in Style: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.540
THN (Jul 2009): Real news from official Handball websites?: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.787
Alberta Sr Women page with link to Youtube videos: http://www.teamhandball.ab.ca/league.php?scriptName=LEAGUEINFO&leagueID=12092&leagueInfoID=47877

The Pan American Team Handball Federation’s (PATHF) Junior Women’s Division 1 Championship are currently taking place in San Jose, Costa Rica. Through 2 match days, Mexico and the Dominican Republic look to be the class of this (Under 20) competition, while relative newcomers Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala appear to be at least one step down in class. Barring a major change in performance Mexico and the Dominican Republic should advance to the PATHF Junior Championship next year where they will take on Brazil, Argentina, Greenland, Uruguay, Puerto Rico and Chile. The top 3 teams from that tournament will then advance to the Junior World Championships next summer in South Korea.

Meanwhile, a U.S. Women’s team consisting of players ranging in ages from 14-25 traveled to Poland where they took on the Polish Women’s National Team and participated in an under 21 tournament against Norway, the Czech Republic and Poland. Predictably, for a very inexperienced team taking on quality competition, the scores ranged from ugly (33-12 against the Poland Jrs) to downright brutal (59-11 to Norway). While, some might argue that those scores indicate that the trip was a waste of time, I don’t fall into that camp. As I wrote back in 2006 https://teamhandballnews.com/news142.html, even the worst blowout is a valuable learning experience for the players of the losing team and nations also get a very clear benchmark of where they stand and how far they need to go.

That being said, however, when the gap becomes too great there are diminishing returns for the losing side. Ideally, a trip will include a match or two against top sides, as well as matches against comparative foes. This is why I’m a big fan of the current World Championships format which gives sides like Australia a “lesson” during group play, but then gives them an opportunity to compete on a more equal footing in the President’s Cup.

Arguably, the ongoing PATHF tournament in Costa Rica would have been just such a tournament for the U.S. In all likelihood, the U.S. would have been smoked by Mexico and the Dominican Republic, but they would have been competitive against the other 3 sides. These tournaments would also have given the U.S. players a taste of what competition is like in Latin America. On down the line as the U.S. improves one can also hope that the U.S. will qualify for World Junior and Youth championships where players get great exposure to scouts for professional clubs.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty well documented that I’m not a big fan of PATHF. But, I still have the same questions that I raised last month when the U.S. didn’t participate in the Men’s senior Div 1 Championships. Except in this case an even stronger argument could be made that the ongoing “youth movement” would have been served pretty well by this tournament.

USA Team Handball is expected to release some of its planning documentation in the near future. Here’s hoping it clearly explains what the grand strategy is in terms of which teams will play where and why?

Canadian side note: According to the Canadian Federation Facebook page, Canada didn’t even get an invite to this tournament. It should also be noted, though, that they probably wouldn’t have participated anyway due to their current focus on the Sr. Programs.

USA Team Handball: Dipping Toes in International Waters: http://usateamhandball.org/news/2009/11/22/dipping-toes-in-international-waters/29259
THN (Sep 2006): Is it Better to Get Blown Out or to Just Stay Home?: https://teamhandballnews.com/news142.html
THN (Oct 2008): Analyzing the US decision to not participate in PATHF: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.854
PATHF Div 1 Juniors Results: http://www.panamhandball.org/index.php?option=com_joomleague&func=showResultsRank&p=8&Itemid=26
Canadian Federation Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Canadian-Team-Handball-Federation/165918018883

Christer’s response downplayed the problem and exaggerated the impact of the potential solution I’m advocating. First off, let’s reiterate what the “problem” is and acknowledge that it is indeed a real problem. The problem we are discussing here are actions taken by players and even coaches in the last few seconds of a match to disrupt/stop the team with possession of the ball from scoring by any means necessary. Christer maintains “that there is fortunately only one Prokop, and the risk for ‘copycats’ is very small.” While Prokop’s action was the most egregious one people have seen (thanks to youtube) at the end of a match, it’s by no means the first time it’s ever happen. Two commenters on our Facebook page were eye witnesses to similar actions, presumably by coaches.

What more commonly happens, though, is that players on the court perform the unsportsmanlike acts with the most popular method being tackling or hacking the player about to throw the ball in play at midcourt. The player is awarded a red card, but a few precious seconds run off the clock and the defense gets the opportunity to fully organize itself for the last second shot. The most recent occurrence was just two weekends ago when Laima Bernataviciute of Alcoa FKC stopped play simply to prevent one more goal. Predictably, the EHF penalized her with a one game suspension. http://www.eurohandball.com/article/012710/Suspension+of+Alcoa+FKC+player At least in this case it didn’t result in her club advancing to the next round. And as my earlier article https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.651 shows there are a lot of copycats out there and one game suspension penalties have done absolutely nothing to deter this “clever” end of game maneuver.

So, Handball observers you can only be in one of two camps. You can either prefer the current set of rules and punishments which in the end, obligates players to commit unsportsmanlike fouls at the end of a match or you can recognize that there is a problem and seek a better solution/deterrent. Count me as squarely in the latter camp!

A short refresher: The solution I’m proposing, the technical penalty shot, would be awarded when a player commits a foul which results in a direct red card. In addition to the two minute penalty, the team that was fouled would be awarded a penalty shot and then would also get possession of the ball after the penalty shot.

Clearly, if this solution was implemented, it would forever alter play at the end of a match. Gunnar Prokop certainly wouldn’t have stepped on the court to stop the Metz fastbreak. A “maybe” fastbreak goal would have been replaced with a more certain penalty shot. And even if the penalty shot was missed Metz would have yet another attempt to score. And this wouldn’t just stop ridiculous maneuvers like Prokop, but other more common unsportsmanlike fouls like tackling/hacking the player about to throw in the ball after a made goal.

Christer indicates that such a punishment would be out of proportion, but he doesn’t make much of a case to explain why that is. He ignores the fact that the current combination of red cards and post game disciplinary measures is having no effect and then make a misleading reference to basketball free throws. For clarity, let’s not confuse the concept of the technical foul with the standard foul in basketball. At the end of a basketball game it’s true that some matches degenerate into free throw shooting contests as the trailing team’s only hope is to foul the other team and hope they miss their free throws. But, as Christer points out these fouls are done within the standard norms of play. Players don’t tackle the opposition with unsportsmanlike fouls because the penalty is the more severe technical foul, which results in free throws and the opposing team still retaining possession. As I envision it, the same sort of thing would happen in Handball. Teams would still seek to foul players to stop play, they just wouldn’t tackle and hack players outside the standard norms of play. In other words, there would be proportional consequences for the level of infraction.

Christer also highlights another problem in that officials would have to make “subjective” calls as to whether certain fouls warranted a penalty shot. He even indicates that until about 30 years ago there was a similar provision in the rules that “turned out to be disastrous.” Although, he didn’t actually mention why it was disastrous I can only speculate that some officials made some questionable calls in the awarding of these penalty shots. This, of course, ignores the reality that officials make hundreds of calls a game which are already subjective and open to interpretation. Officials are human beings and sometimes they make the wrong call, even for inappropriate reasons. As a long time basketball player, I can remember being subjected to a ref or two who I felt was unfairly biased and a little too quick with the whistle when it came to calling a Technical foul. More notably, this has happened on occasion at higher levels, but it’s infrequent due to the fact that officials can be disciplined. Perhaps the most famous example is the abrupt end of NBA Official Jake O’Donnell’s career: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_O'Donnell.

Fortunately, referees abusing their power is the rare exception. Most players and coaches, in fact, will begrudgingly agree that they generally had it coming to them when they got the red card. The solution, therefore, is not to take away an official’s ability to control the game. And is it any real surprise that the coaches don’t want to see the return of the Technical Penalty Shot?—What a deal do they have now in Handball! Can you imagine basketball being played without “technicals”? Only in Bobby Knight’s fantasy world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvRO2GE4x4M

No, the solution is instead to give officials another tool in their toolbox that can be used sparingly. Direct red cards are not a common occurrence and apart from the last few seconds of a match nobody ever desires one. And adding a “Technical Penalty Shot” will eliminate that crazy desire as well.

Handball’s Last Minute Problem (Part 1): Time to add the Technical Penalty Shot: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.873
Handball's Last Minute Problem (Part 2): John has good intentions… but gets his ‘solutions’ from the wrong sources!: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.875