From the EHF Website’s summary of the EHF Congress Day 1:
http://home.eurohandball.com/ehf_files/ehf_news/jj_dayone/default.htm “ It was agreed, in line with professional EHF event management, that the official language at EHF events will be English in the future.“

Well, I for one think that this is a step in the right direction. Could this mean that the EHF’s forward thinking marketing strategy to provide live streaming of games will now also include English language commentary? Stay tuned. Maybe it’s time to activate the Anglophone Alliance to help push this along. http://teamhandball.blogspot.com/2005/07/time-for-anglophone-alliance.html

As I feel that Team Handball can learn from the successes and failures of other minor sports in the United States I try to follow what’s happening to other lesser known sports in the US. Here’s an update on recent news items related to Lacrosse, Rugby, and Skeleton in the US.

Lacrosse

As anyone who follows US news already knows, the sport of Lacrosse has become a front page news topic as a result of an alleged rape by Duke University players. What you might not know is that Lacrosse has seen a remarkable surge in participation in the last 10 years. Sports Illustrated writer and NPR commentator, Frank Deford, discusses this in context with recent rape case in his weekly pod cast: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5363527
As you might expect, even bad publicity can be good publicity when it increases interest in the sport. Certainly, laxcast.com: www.laxcast.com has also seen a surge in interest. Their site model, in which they except content from multiple sources is one that I see our site also adopting.

Rugby

Well, if you thought only Team Handball had National Office problems, you’d be wrong. Recently, both the USA Rugby CEO and National Team Coach submitted resignations within only a couple of days of each. The situation has gotten so bad that National Team players have written a letter chastising the board over it’s handling of the situation: http://americanrugbynews.com/2006/04/28/players-unhappy-with-coaching-situation
Living in France, I’ve become a big fan of Rugby and regularly listen to the Americanrugbynews.com podcast: www.americanrugbynews.com It’s incredibly striking to hear the same arguments between national team and youth development repeatedly made, as well as the need for TV broadcasts. The current CEO that was hired for USA Rugby had previously worked for Salt Lake City Olympic Games and had been brought in primarily to use his connections to bring in the sponsorships and TV deals through his marketing connections. According to several articles at this blog: www.gainline.us he has not been able to bring in the dollars and that has led to him being forced out. One thing that I will give USA Rugby credit for though, is that they haven’t entirely hidden under a rock. In particular, they held a telephone press conference in the midst of all this turmoil and took questions from the above mentioned internet sites (and others) that cover rugby in the USA.

Skeleton

The Winter Olympic sport of Skeleton has voted to allow the USOC to take it over and reorganize it.

The USOC had not been happy with their handling of a sexual harassment case and a drug case and had indicated that they were going to pull funding from the Skeleton Federation. Apparently, the Skeleton Federation was given the option of USOC management takeover or decertification. My understanding is that most USA Handball Board Members would also have preferred the USOC management takeover option, but this was not on the table. It would be interesting to know why the USOC made the decertification decision for Pentathlon and Handball, but went the reorganization route with Tae-Kwon-Do and Skeleton. Probably, some legal reason, but that is simply speculation on my part.

As has been reported previously on our website, Canada will not be participating in the Men’s Pan Am Championship’s this June in Brazil. As the Men’s Pan Am Championships serves as the Pan Am Region qualifier for the World Championships next January in Germany this has dealt a significant blow to the Canadian program. My own personal opinion is that the PATHF should step in and resolve this situation in a timely manner.

Here’s more analysis (questions and answers) on the whole controversy:

1) Canada placed 3rd at the 2004 Men’s Pan Am Championship and qualified for the 2005 World Championships in Tunisia. Why aren’t they even participating in the 2006 Men’s Pan Am Championship?

The simple answer is that PATHF regulations have now been put in place which limits the field to the top 8 teams based on performance in the 3 previous Pan Am Championships. While Canada placed 3rd in 2004, they did not participate in the 2003 Pan Am Games or the 2002 Pan Am Championships and therefore did not receive any points for their overall composite score. A summary of the standings is contained in the last published Pan Am Newsletter from December 2004.
[link=https://teamhandballnews.com/docs/panam08.pdf]file[/link]

2) So Canada would have qualified if they had just simply showed up at either of those 2 events. They, theoretically, could have sent a junior high team and lost every match by 60 goals, but they would have picked up points for 9th place and that would have put them in the top 8. Why didn’t they do that?

According to my Podcast conversation with Canadian National Team player Alexis Bertrand, Canada made a budgetary decision based on the current experience level of their National Team. As the team was young and inexperienced, Canada decided to save money and focus on developing their team so that they would have more funding available when the team had matured and was more competitive.

3) It seems a little unusual to provide equal weight to Championship results from 4 years ago. Are there any other continental federations that have similar regulations for their championships?

To the best of my knowledge the answer is no. A review of other Federation’s Championships indicates that their championships and qualification games are organized so that all nations have an opportunity to qualify for the World Championships on the playing court. Previous year performance does play a role in terms of seeding and pre-qualification tournaments, but no other Federation considers performance from 3 and 4 years ago.

4) Why was this system put in place?

One of the concerns that had been identified is that North American teams had not previously been required to play in prequalification championships while South American teams had been required to qualify prior to Pan Am Tournaments. Although, one could argue that the 2004 North American Championship resolved that need. One of the merits of this system is that it encourages teams to participate in Pan Am events on a consistent basis. Still, I’m at a lost as to why this system was seen as an improvement over a system which allows every team an opportunity to qualify.

5) This really seems like a bad way to decide who participates in such an important tournament. Was this process approved in a secret meeting without review from all of the nations?

This system was formally approved at the PATHF Congress in São Paulo in June, 2004. I wasn’t there, but one would expect that a congress meeting would allow for an open debate as to the pros and cons of the new system. Perhaps, some nations didn’t realize what they actually were approving, but this is purely speculation on my part.

6) Are there any other shortcomings with this system that might cause concern?

Yes, there are a couple of other issues that I can identify. First, the system does not appear to adequately take into account Greenland’s ineligibility to participate in the Pan Am Games. Although it did not happen, it is quite conceivable that Greenland could have finished out of the top 8 because of this handicap. It would have been interesting to see how the PATHF would have handled this situation if it had occurred.

Secondly, Cuba is another team that would not be able to participate under this system. Despite their recent losses against Brazil, Cuba has traditionally had a very strong and competitive program. Their performance in 1995 and 1997 are the best ever for a Men’s Pan Am team and under the current World Championship’s regulations would have earned the Pan Am region an extra bid to the next World Championships. If Cuba were to decide to support their Men’s program more strongly they could potentially repeat those performances. But under this system they wouldn’t even be allowed to try and qualify.

7) What about other sports? Has anything like this happened before? How was the problem resolved?

Last year, Liverpool Football Club won the European Champion’s League title. Despite winning this title they finished 5th in England’s Championship and therefore did not receive one of England’s four Champion’s League bids. The UEFA Champion’s League Regulations did not include any provision for the defending champion to participate and England’s rules strictly required that the top 4 teams receive the bids. So, what was to be done? Would it be fair for UEFA to give England an extra bid? Would if be fair for England to take away the bid of the 4th place team and give it to Liverpool? Rules are rules- right? It wouldn’t be fair to change what had already been agreed to- right?

In this case common sense prevailed and an obvious shortcoming was fixed. The rules were changed and Liverpool was added to the tournament this year. They had to begin play in the preliminary stages, but they were indeed given an opportunity to defend their title. More info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/4581317.stm
http://www.uefa.com/uefa/news/Kind=128/newsId=308644.html

8 ) Well, if a rule change was done for European Club Soccer, could something similar be done for Pan Am Team Handball?

Of course, something similar could be done. It would require some scheduling adjustments, but it is certainly feasible. It would also require some leadership to recognize that an unfair situation has arisen and that it should be addressed if a forthright matter. I don’t know if the other nations have been formally asked, but I would like to think that they would easily grasp the unfairness of the situation and would support taking steps to include Canada. Certainly, any nation interested in fair play would prefer to beat Canada on the playing court rather than receive a tainted 3rd place as their ticket to the World Championships.

http://www.sportfocus.com/webpro/handball/nlstory.cfm?ID=18436&NLID=42045
In what might well be a record in terms of Team Handball futility, Sweden defeated England 67-3 this past weekend in an under 20 Men’s qualification match for the Euro 2006 Under 20 Men’s Championships. You might think that perhaps Sweden needed to run up the score just in case goal differential would come into play. This was not the case, however, as Sweden had already defeated the other two teams in its pool and simply needed to win the match to qualify. Kudos to the English Handball Federation for posting this result, rather than trying to pretend it never happened. Certainly a score like that could serve as a rallying cry as they try to further develop their program in time for the 2012 Olympics in London.

With 3 Million British Pounds recently added to their budget for the next 4 years by the British Olympic Committee they certainly can expect to improve on that score. http://www.sportfocus.com/webpro/handball/nlstory.cfm?ID=18401&NLID=42045

Team Handball is a very minor sport in the US and many other countries. This low profile can be expressed in several ways to include:
– Limited athlete participation
– Little or no fan attendance
– No significant amateur leagues
– No professional leagues
– Very weak National Teams
– Almost no TV coverage (2004 Olympics was the most significant coverage ever on U.S. TV)
– Almost zero name recognition (people don’t even know the sport exists)

Well meaning observers of Team Handball, often upon seeing the sport for the first time, are perplexed. They think, “What a great sport! Why haven’t I heard about this sport before? Why is the US so uncompetitive against the top teams? You know, if Team Handball simply copied what was done for <insert sport here>, then Team Handball in the US would also be popular and competitive.”

These well meaning analogies however are often plagued with problems. So herewith is my analysis of “What’s wrong with your analogy.”

Soccer

This is probably the most commonly cited analogy and there are many commonalities between the state of US Soccer many years ago and the current state of US Team Handball. The progress US Soccer has made in the past 20 years is simply dramatic. One has only to look at the number of youth leagues in the US, the attendance at the World Cups in the US, the development of MLS into a fairly stable Professional League, the performance of the US National Teams, and the availability of TV broadcasts. By emphasizing youth leagues the US has not only been able to develop some quality players for the National Teams they have also created a greater appreciation of the sport and enough of a fan base in the US to support a Professional league and TV Broadcasts.

What’s wrong with this analogy?
1) What’s often overlooked with this analogy is the “why” behind the development of so many youth leagues. This didn’t happen by chance and was driven by a number of factors, with the biggest one being how dirt cheap it is to field a soccer team. Balls, goals, and an outdoor field is all you need. The fact that Team Handball is an INDOOR SPORT WHICH REQUIRES SIGNIFICANT COURT SPACE is a huge handicap. As anyone who has ever tried to start a Handball team knows the challenge of finding, and often paying to use, an indoor gym is a significant hurdle to overcome. And even if you find a gym, you will also be fortunate if you find one that can handle a 40m x 20m court.
2) Another factor that has to be considered is that soccer is relatively speaking a less physically and technically challenging sport than Team Handball. While Team Handball can and is played by young children in Europe, soccer is a better game due to less physical contact and the fact that even 5 year olds can kick a ball. And at any age the fact that Team Handball is a PHYSICAL SPORT immediately limits your pool of potential players.
3) While Soccer suffered from low participation the sport has always had significant name recognition and exposure in the United States. I grew up in rural Iowa in the 1970’s and 80’s, far away in both time and place from the soccer explosion in urban centers during the 1980’ and 90’s. Yet, I knew what soccer was and played the sport (albeit poorly and with little real understanding of the rules) in Physical Education classes. Contrast this to the virtual zero name recognition that Team Handball has in the US. Quite simply, it is extremely difficult to start from ZERO NAME RECOGNITION and have to actually explain the basic concept of a game to somebody who potentially might be interested in it.

What’s right with this analogy: While the 3 hurdles listed above are significant they can be overcome. It’s unrealistic, however, to think that the US can simply mimic soccer’s road to success. No one will argue, thought, that if some good youth leagues were established, even at a ridiculously small fraction (compared to soccer), US Team Handball would be in a much better state than it is today.

Lacrosse

This analogy’s faults are similar to soccer’s. Lacrosse isn’t nearly as popular as soccer, but it has seen some significant growth in the past 20 years, including the development of a professional league. However, tenet 1) the sport is played outdoors and tenet 3) it is fairly well known; still apply. In fact in some parts of the country (the Northeast), I’ve read that they have had to shut down little league baseball, because so many kids are playing Lacrosse. (It would be amazing if Handball ever did that to one of the major US sports)

What’s right with this analogy: The professional league, albeit not a huge one, could be a long term goal for US Handball. Additionally, focusing on one principal region of the country might be something for US Team Handball to consider.

Ultimate Frisbee

Same analogy faults as Soccer, and this sport is even cheaper.

What’s right with this analogy: The growth of this sport has been truly dynamic and fast despite at one time having near zero name recognition. Once again if Team Handball could only have a fraction of their participation and success it would truly be an improvement.

Volleyball

Volleyball has exploded from a principally California based sport to a nation-wide sport. This is particularly true in terms of the number of girls playing the sport today. Case in point, I’ll use my old high school in Iowa. Twenty years ago we played the sport (poorly) in PE class. Now my high school and virtually every high school in the state it is a varsity girl’s sport. How did this happen? Title IX played a primary role, but volleyball and its non physical contact nature is a natural for girls. This goes back to tenet 2) Handball is a physical sport and that can sometimes make it a tougher sell.

What’s right with this analogy: Title IX should be used to sell Team Handball as a woman’s sport. This is being done it just needs to be done more aggressively.

Rowing

Don’t ask me how this sport has increased in popularity. It’s more expensive than handball, requires having a lake or river nearby, and in my opinion, has got to be one of the most boring sports in the world to watch. Amazingly, because it is an NCCA sport and helps fulfil Title IX obligations, schools like Arizona State (In the middle of a desert!) have programs:

Arizona State Crew:  http://www.asu.edu/clubs/rowing/index_files/page0002.htm
I even read in Sports Illustrated that some schools have given scholarships to athletes with no experience in the sport.

What’s right with this analogy: My goodness, if you can get 50 people to join a club to row in the desert, you’d think you could get 20 to play handball. This proves anything is possible. Once again Title IX should be a key ally.

Rugby

There are several hundred rugby clubs in the United States playing at different levels including a National Super League. Rugby is also arguably the most popular club sport in American colleges. The US National Team has not come close to cracking the top tier of nations, but can field a respectable team and even has a few players playing professionally in Europe. But while USA Rugby, comparatively has been more successful then USA Team Handball, the sport still hasn’t been able to reach the next level in terms of popularity.

What’s right with this analogy: Well certainly Rugby in the US has proven that a sport can grow and become popular even if it is a very physical sport. It also has a pretty organized nation wide club system, both independent and collegiate. USA Team Handball should also try and follow Rugby’s path of getting more Americans to play for overseas clubs.

This can go on and on. The bottom line is that Team Handball can certainly learn and apply lessons from these other sports, but it will never be as simple as an exact copy of another successful development plan, principally because I know of know other sport that has had to overcome these three principal handicaps:

1) Team Handball is an indoor sport that requires significant court space
2) Team Handball is a physical sport and this limits the overall potential player pool
3) Team Handball suffers from near zero name recognition

Saturday’s, EHF Cup 2nd leg match between Goppingen and Creteil, ended in controversy during the waning seconds of the match. Creteil had won the first match in France by 4 goals 30-26. With 30 seconds remaining and trailing 23-19, Creteil needed to score one more goal to cut the lead to 3 and win by aggregate. (Note: Goppingen would advance on a 4 goal victory due to the away goals rule).

Creteil’s last offensive series was somewhat unorganized and Goppingen was able to disrupt it on 3 occasions with contact fouls. With 2 seconds remaining the last foul was called. Creteil player, Pierre-Yves Rigault, realizing that time was winding down quickly executed a direct 9 meter throw that surprised the goalie and hit the back of the net. One ref signaled a goal and Creteil started to celebrate. The other ref, however, said no and a 5-10 minute discussion which included table officials resulted in the goal not being allowed and Creteil being given 2 seconds back on the clock. With no element of surprise and a set defense in place the end result (no goal) was predictable.

Now, in defense of the officials, replays clearly showed that one Creteil player had not fully moved beyond the 9 meter line and several German players were clearly closer than 3 meters to the throw off. Still, as I think about it, it seems to me that these sorts of situations happen all too often and one simple rule changes could fix these end of match problems.

That rule change would be to simply adopt a basketball style stoppage of time for the last minute of every half. That would mean, if a whistle blows, the clock stops– immediately. The current system, by which officials decide to blow the whistle 3 times and stop the clock, is too wide open to interpretation. After a goal is made, the official has to make a decision as to whether the team is moving fast enough to half court to start play. After a foul, the official has to decide whether the offense is moving outside of the 9 meter line and the defense is moving 3 meters away from the ball fast enough. If we simply take this decision out of the hands of the ref, these controversial judgment calls won’t have to be made.

Not only would this eliminate these stall tactics, it would also eliminate the all too common ploy to simply foul the other team as the clock winds down, as the worst thing that can happen is a 2 minute penalty (assuming it’s not foolishly done in the act of shooting). The IHF now regards flagrant instances as “serious unsportsmanlike conducts,” but the remedy of not allowing a player to play in his next match is not very satisfying to the team that’s eliminated. (Nor is it working- every other EHF press release seems to be a disiplinary notice on this very subject.) And even if it’s not flagrant, do we really want to see a succession of 9 meter throw after 9 meter throw as the defense tries to run out the clock?

Will this change the game? Yes, the stoppage of the game clock will extend the last minute of a game slightly. I would estimate that it would add perhaps another minute in real time for close games. Teams also would no longer foul quite as much at the end of the game as the reward of taking another 5-10 seconds off the game clock would be gone. There still will be fouls, of course, but the defense’s only reward would be the opportunity to set back up on defense. And this reward will be offset by the offense getting an opportunity to run a set 9 meter play.

While, I suppose it could be argued that the current rules are fine the way they are. I just don’t see what’s so exciting and compelling about waiting to see if the ref thinks one team’s stalling has gone too far and deserves a stoppage of the clock. If this simple rule for clock stoppage was added, the ending seconds of a game would hinge more on the skill of the players, and less on the judgment of the referee.

The back and forth arguments regarding seeding for the SETHC playoffs resulted in the unfortunate dismissal of the ATH from the SETHC. The questions regarding seeding were raised by ATH Coach, Chris “Cap” Cappelmann and centered around Benedict College receiving the number one seed despite having won fewer games in the conference. For those unfamiliar with traditional Handball (or Euro format) standings, the ranking of teams is done strictly by the points awarded for wins and ties. Winning percentage is not used, so by Cap’s logic (and traditional Handball circles), ATH with an 8-2 record should have received the #1 seed over Benedict’s 7-1 record.

For whatever reason, however, the SETHC and its commissioner, Andrew Washington chose to use the winning percentage method and awarded Benedict the top seed. This decision and example scenarios concerning seeding was then sent out via email in January to the SETHC. The time for complaining (justified complaining, in my opinion) would have been shortly after that email and prior to the matches played in February. Waiting until after those matches and shortly before the play-offs is simply the wrong time to make your case.

The resulting email dialogue which grew increasingly personal led to the commissioner’s decision to remove ATH from the league. Cap, in my opinion, had a valid point, but made the point at the wrong time and in frustration, also crossed the line in his dialogue with Andrew. And regardless of how much you feel your team has been wronged, it’s important to keep perspective on just how important that seeding was in relation to the opportunity to have competition.

Andrew, in my opinion, could have been a little bit less dismissive in responding to some of the email traffic. I also think that if the earlier email containing the scenarios was resent that might have resolved the issue earlier. And finally, perhaps the punishment should have been simply on the coach, instead of the entire team. (e.g. suspension for the first day of the tournament)

But enough! I think everyone should move on from this and learn from it. Having two good teams in the same town is quite a luxury to have. I’m sure clubs like Utah, Cleveland and other locales are scratching their heads. Some of the commentary I’ve seen also suggests that ATH and Atlanta Metro need to better share the workload logistics for making a league work. That sounds like a good plan. Let’s also hope that next season the league adopts 100% clear parameters at the start of the season and that these rivalries are settled on the court, instead of the court of public opinion. But maybe this will be settled on the court sooner than that. Hmmm, I wonder who’s setting the brackets for the USOC Championship next month.

If Championship Boxing can have multiple titles for multiple fighters than why not Handball?

As reported earlier, the current or former (take your pick) President of the USATH, Mike Hurdle, has already announced a National Championship in Georgia to take place in May over Memorial Day weekend. The USOC has now announced that they will be hosting an Open Championship in Houston at the end of April. So this begs the question, which one is the real championship? But perhaps, the better question is, does it really matter?

After Mike Hurdle informed us of the USATH Championships, I started a running email dialogue on the topic with him. In particular, I questioned the format of the tournament (over 5 days), the timing (Memorial Day Weekend) and the location (Georgia). Basically, my points were that this was too significant of a time commitment over a major holiday and that the announcement’s flavour was a little too parochial in my book.

Mike’s response was that the intent was to move beyond the “Beer Hall Nationals” mentality and to have a higher quality, elite level tournament in which the teams will have an opportunity to rest. Additionally, he emphasized that the focus is on the Junior Divisions and he anticipates a lot of youth participation from the local area- hence the Georgian flavour of the announcement. Mike also pointed out that the Condors would probably even send a team to the “Beer Hall Nationals” that the USOC is subsidizing.

Well, my own personal perspective, is that it sounds like Mike Hurdle is setting up a nice tournament in Georgia and he should be strongly commended for the Junior Division focus. I also like the format over what has been traditionally done at US Nationals in the past. I would be hard pressed to make that kind of time commitment now, but if I was a younger, more dedicated athlete that’s the tournament I would go to if I thought it was going to be well attended. Which is the crux of the matter. The US, unfortunately, is probably not quite ready for a format like this. Maybe next year, but not this year as tumultuous as it has been. I expect that this USATH Tournament will be “National” in name only. Teams will have a choice on what to do. Some might even go to both, but I’d expect that most teams will vote for the smaller time commitment, smaller dollar expenditure and the traditional format.

So to answer my rhetorical questions… The real National Championship will be the one with the best National representation. And does it matter? No, not really.

Well, normally when I talk about March Madness it’s related to the USA’s NCAA Basketball Tournament. It’s always been my favourite sports time of year and there’s nothing quite like the magic of several games taking place at the same time with the inevitable buzzer beaters and upsets. Last Saturday, however, courtesy of the EHF, it was March Madness: Team Handball style.

First up was Kiel-Flensburg. Some prognosticators had predicted a dull game with the likelihood of Kiel beating Flensburg in Flensburg by 5 goals as highly unlikely. Those prognosticators were dead wrong, as the aggregate winner was in doubt until the very final seconds as Kiel almost pulled out a miracle. Due to a higher number of away goals, Kiel only required to win by 4 and with less than a minute to go they had closed the gap to 3. Some tough defense and a disoriented final attack/controversial non called foul sealed the deal for Flensburg and a trip to the semifinals. Flensburg fans, perhaps having feared a repeat of last year’s nightmare against Montpellier http://teamhandball.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_teamhandball_archive.html, can now breathe a sigh of relief.

The second match between Spanish rivals Barcelona and Portland San Antonio also was a see-saw affair with Portland-San Antonio and Ivan Balic holding on to win on aggregate. Living in France, I also had the opportunity to see my favourite team http://teamhandball.blogspot.com/2005/10/top-10-reasons-why-i-love-to-hate.html , Montpellier fall to Veszprem (Hungary). (Yes, I was watching 2 matches at the same time, just like a sports bar back home!) Montpellier kept it interesting until the final minutes, but the 2 goal aggregate lead simply wasn’t enough. Tunisian National Team player Wissem Hmam certainly has a gun of an arm, but he is perplexingly inconsistent. Montpellier clearly misses having Karabatic in the backcourt.

Side note: The good news about Montpellier losing is that it probably means the EHF will be able to show both semifinal matches live on the internet. Just a guess, but I would bet that Sports Plus would not allow games to be broadcast over the internet. When France played in the semifinals and finals at the European Championship Sports Plus offered to sell the broadcast rights to the over air French stations for 400,000 Euros. The over air stations balked at the price resulting in outrage from Handball fans that an Ireland-Wales rugby match was broadcast instead. Adding even more salt on the wounds was the first ever live over air broadcast of the American Football Super Bowl early the next morning. With 2 Spanish clubs, a German club, and a Hungarian Club internet broadcast is more likely. The first leg of the semifinals is 25-26 March and the second leg is 1-2 April, which is the same weekend as the final four NCAA tourney. Nothing like a double shot of March Madness!

You can read more about the matches at the EHF Champions League website:
http://championsleague.eurohandball.com/index.asp

Major kudos to the EHF for providing this free live broadcast last night. That’s the type of promotion this sport needs more of. Here's some of my thoughts on watching Handball live on the web for the first time:

Viewing Experience

Well on a 1-10 scale, with a 1 being a 1970ish over air reception on a small Black and White TV and a 10 being an HDTV transmission on a big screen plasma set, I would give last night’s viewing experience a 3. The low score is simply the result of having to watch either a slightly blurred full screen or a smaller, eye straining picture. The problem is simply the fast paced action of a handball match- there’s just not quite enough bits being passed through to give a clear, crisp picture. During the pre-game interviews, close-ups, or slow motion replays the viewing experience was much better. The audio was pretty good, but not knowing any German the commentary didn’t mean anything to me. Still, you could certainly tell that it was a great atmosphere with 10,000+ spectators.

Improving the Viewing Experience

The simple way to improve the picture quality is to get more data bits into the picture. For live video that means increasing the bandwidth being provided and I would guess this has some practical limitations. An alternative solution, however, would also be to provide the match as a download for later viewing. It wouldn’t be live, but more bits/second could be crammed into the picture, so that the picture would be more sharp. Of course, English language commentary would be nice too, but let’s take one thing at a time.

The Match Itself (Flensburg 32 – Kiel 28)

Flensburg winning at Kiel was certainly a huge upset as they were 4.5 goal underdogs and Kiel had not lost at home all season. The first half was a back and forth defensive affair with Kiel holding on for a narrow 13-12 half-time lead. Flensburg, however, controlled the second half, converted several fast break opportunities and outscored Kiel 20-15 in the second half. With a +4 aggregate lead this now puts them into a commanding position to advance to the semi-finals.

Just in Case You Were Wondering

– The match was not an intra-squad match for Club Provinzial. Provinzial, in fact, is an insurance company and apparently the main sponsor for both teams. In principal, European sports have a totally different philosophy when it comes to advertising. Because sports like Handball and Soccer have fewer breaks and opportunities for commercials, advertising on the uniforms is more prominent. More prominent to the point, where you will usually have difficulty finding anything on the uniform which highlights what club they actually are. The only comparison to this in the US market, I think, is NASCAR. But, if the choice is silly looking uniforms or more commercials, I guess I’ll take the silly uniforms.
– Even, though the final outcome of the match wasn’t in doubt, every minute was contested to the end due to the importance of the overall aggregate score. The same two teams will meet in Flensburg on Saturday and the total combined score of the two matches will determine who advances to the semi-finals. At this level, the teams usually take turns winning at home with the team winning by the most overall goals advancing. Kiel has a big mountain to climb if they are going to win at Flensburg and win by 5 goals. It’s pretty rare that two teams split with both victories being taken by the away teams.
– Flensburg-Handewitt is located right on the Germany-Denmark border and for all practical purposes is the Bundesliga’s equivalent of Major League Baseball’s Toronto Bluejays. The roster is more Danish than German and their website is featured in both languages.
http://www.sg-flensburg-handewitt.de/home.html
– To a slightly lesser extent Kiel can be considered the Swedish entrant as they have a long tradition of the top Swedish players playing for them. http://www.thw-provinzial.de/thw/ethw.htm

The Swedish Womens Ice Hockey team’s 3-2 penalt shoot-out victory over the United States is surely one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history. Team USA had never lost a match to another country besides Canada in over 70 matches. Could Team Handball see the reverse happen? A bunch of teary eyed Europeans with perplexed looks of disbelief as an American, Canadian, Australian, or British team shakes up the current status quo?

Of course it “could” happen. Anything is possible. That’s why they play the game on the court instead of on paper based on each team’s reputation. However, the likelihood of any of the aforementioned teams (men’s or women’s) actually accomplishing a victory over a European team in a major international tournament is extremely unlikely, at least in the near future.

First, the sport of Team Handball, is simply not conducive to the great upset. It can happen, but the nature of the game makes it less likely. With a low scoring game like hockey, a small number of mistakes can have a disproportionate effect on the outcome of the game. One bad pass can lead to a lucky break away. An inspired defensive performance can then allow an outgunned team to secure a major upset. This formula has been used even more often in my favorite sport soccer. National cups are rife with stories of small amateur club teams putting together a string of victories against professional club teams. The same can not, however, be said with Team Handball. A few mistakes will lead to a few scores by a totally outclassed team, but they won’t add up enough for a victory. In order for the upset to be feasible the talent gap between the two teams can only be so great.

And right now, the talent gap between the have’s and the have not’s in Team Handball is simply too great. USA Hockey Coach, Herb Brooks, the architect of the original miracle on ice in 1980 has been quoted as saying that the Soviets would have beaten the USA 9 times out of 10, and that it was his job to make sure that his team was ready to win that 1 out of 10 opportunity. In all honesty, I think that it would be really reaching to think that the US or one of the other minor teams are in the 1 in 10, or for that matter the 1 in 1000 ballpark. I think for instance, right now, for the US Men’s team to beat France it would take a bizarre combination of injuries and red cards resulting in one of the French court players having to play goalie. And even then the US would have to play the game of their lives.

But if the minor teams can close the talent gap, the great upset could happen and the formula for victory is familiar. Sloppy play and poor shooting by the favorite resulting in several fast break opportunities combined with inspired play on defense and a game of their life performance by the goalie. We can dream, can’t we?

The Hearing Panel Report simply states the obvious and should have explored potential remediation

The Hearing Panel focused narrowly on whether USA Team Handball was meeting the requirements for membership in the USOC and recognition as an NGB. It cited 5 areas where USA Team Handball was failing. Those 5 areas are:

1) Lack of financial resources
2) Lack of managerial capability
3) Inability to resolve member grievances
4) Lack of organizational competence
5) Incapability to promote and develop the sport

Areas 1 and 2 are, of course, are a direct result of the USOC suspending all funding to USATH. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that a bankrupt organization can not meet its financial responsibilities nor pay staff to manage itself. Areas 3 and 4 both relate to the Constitution bylaw controversy which were unfortunately not resolved by the competing factions. Area 5 is also at least partially a money related issue. Funding from the USOC has steadily declined in recent years and not surprisingly performance has also declined. Money would not solve all of USATH’s performance issues, but it’s certainly an important factor.

It shouldn’t be surprising that no one on the USATH Board contested these findings. They are all essentially true. The simple lesson here is that you don’t mess with the USOC, especially if they are your principal source of funding.

What is disappointing with the Hearing Panel’s report is its simple, narrow focus. While the Hearing Panel did not have the authority to fashion a remedial settlement there is nothing that prevented them from highlighting or suggesting potential remediation. Certainly, if you are going to take the time to research and assess what happened, you can also form an opinion on how best to proceed. Simply stating that it's up to the USOC and USATH (an organization that they also declare is incompetent) to consider potential remediation is a disappointing neglect of implied responsibility. Certainly, the Hearing Panel was able to state that they were deeply concerned about the athletes being supported. If they were truly concerned they would have tried to also to identify a potential way ahead that would address the underlying problems affecting the sport. This is not just idle chatter, as one only has to plug in “USOC”, “Taekwondo”, and “Triathlon” into Google to see some of the brinkmanship and remediation that has taken place in the past.

In this case, the USOC has decided on finality and removing USATH. In starting over it appears that Team Handball and the USOC will be heading into uncharted waters. It will be interesting to see what the next steps will be. Some questions for the coming weeks:

1) Will the USOC continue to fund the Women’s National Team Program?
2) Will the USOC provide funding for a Men’s Team be formed to participate in the PAN AM Championships in April?
3) Will the USOC provide funding for the Club National Championships and Collegiate National Championships?
4) What are the future plans for Handball Governance by the USOC?
5) Will organizations like the National Team Handball Association apply for USOC membership and NGB status?

Several news articles discussing the IOC’s recent decision in Turin to not reinstate Baseball and Softball have referenced Team Handball as an example of a sport not nearly as worthy of a spot on the Olympic program.

http://www.enidnews.com/sportslocal/local_story_042004450.html?keyword=topstory

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Columnists/Gross/2006/02/12/1438675.html

While this context is certainly American centric there is also a significant amount of truth to the argument that Team Handball is simply a European sport. On the Women’s side, outside of South Korea, and a little noise recently made by Brazil, the sport has been dominated by European teams. On the Men’s side, outside of a little noise by Egypt and more recently Tunisia, the sport is also dominated by European sides. For more discourse on the sport’s popularity check my earlier blog entry: http://teamhandball.blogspot.com/2005/07/just-how-popular-is-team-handball.html

Team Handball passed an IOC vote last summer, but at some point in the future there will be another vote taken on the sport’s Olympic future. And while the IOC may have disproportionate European membership now, this will probably not always be the case. Hopefully, the IHF is getting this message and we will soon see more aggressive steps to market the sport world-wide.