Army takes Team Handball’s Commander in Chief Trophy

Posted on November 7, 2011 by John Ryan

Air Force on attack against Army

Army easily defeated Air Force this past Friday 45-30 cadet gym at the Air Force Academy to secure Team Handball’s version of the Commander and Chiefs trophy. Army’s second team also won a match against Air Force 34-27. In the football match the next day Air Force beat Army 24-14. For the past 20 years or so Air Force Football has dominated Army Football by roughly the same measure Army Team Handball has dominated Air Force Team Handball.

Photos from matches: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150345010461759.343605.326245611758&type=1

PANAM Games: USA vs. Canada: LIVE AUDIO COMMENTARY

Posted on October 22, 2011 by John Ryan

Gary Hines and Team USA will take on Canada in Guadalajara

I will provide a live audio commentary of Saturday’s match between the USA and Canada. This consolation semifinal is scheduled for 1:30 PM (U.S. East Coast Time). Last December the two teams split a two game series with each side losing by identical 25-21 scores on the road. Canada won a ten minute overtime, but that was played in Montreal, so this neutral ground showdown will serve as the unofficial rubber match between the two rivals.

The audio and video links are below:

Audio: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/team-handball

Video: http://deportesus.terra.com/rumbo-a-2012/guadalajara-2011/en-vivo/

USA Federation Live Chat page: http://usateamhandball.org/

Undoubtedly, time delays will make traditional commentary unpractical, so I will try to focus on the overall situation. If you’ve got comments/questions post them on the ustream chat or Federation chat pages and I’ll try to respond.

PANAM Games: USA teams look for redemption in consolation brackets; PATHF considers cancellation of Men’s Div I tournament

Posted on October 21, 2011 by John Ryan

Mexico on the fastbreak

Commentary: The USA Men lost narrowly last night to Mexico, 33-32 to finish 0-0-3 in Group play. It’s hard to sugar coat this disappointing loss as the USA was sloppy on offense and often uninspired on defense allowing many goals far too easily. Fully assessing teams via an online video is somewhat difficult, but from the looks of things it appears that the USA was more experienced and physically gifted than the Mexican side. In short, I would argue that the USA had a better individual player at every position, but somehow managed to lose. The bright spot is that the American men have a clear shot at redemption with a chance to settle scores with Canada on Saturday morning in a consolation bracket semifinal. The Canadian Men have also had a disappointing tournament, but were able to get a win against Venezuela yesterday, 28-25. Depending on my schedule I will try and do a live audiocast commentary of the match via USTREAM.TV on Saturday. Game time is 12:30 PM (US Central Time)

The USA Women have also struggled, and finished their group as well with a 0-0-3 record. Their redemption opportunity will be today against Puerto Rico at 10:00 AM local (US Central time)

In other news Mundo Handball is reporting that the Pan American Team Handball Federation (PATHF) is considering the possibility of cancelling the Men’s Division I Championship currently scheduled for next month in the Dominican Republic. Instead, 12 teams would be invited to the Elite Championship which would be played next summer with the host nation opportunity being awarded to the PANAM Games Gold Medal winner. This proposed change in format raises a lot of questions and we’ll address those in a follow up story.

Mundo Handball: Mario Moccia Interview: http://www.mundohandball.com/Continentes/Panamerica/2011/Moccia-handballde1.html

USATH: USA Men’s comeback falls just short against Mexico: http://usateamhandball.org/news/2011/10/20/usa-men-s-comeback-falls-just-short-against-mexico/45121?ngb_id=42

VIDEO: USA – Mexico Highlight: http://deportesus.terra.com/rumbo-a-2012/videos/0,,340860.html

PANAM Games: USA and Canadian Men lose again: Both relegated to 5th-8th place

Posted on October 19, 2011 by John Ryan

USA defender, Domagoj Srsen, jumps high to block an Argentine jump shot

Both the USA and Canadian Men lost their second matches in Group play yesterday. As expected the USA lost to Group favorite Argentina, 36-19. Some solace, however, can be taken from a strong first half performance that saw the USA down only 12-9 at the break. The Canadian Men got roughed up a bit more than I would expect by Chile, losing 42-25. Based on results so far Chile may even give Brazil a run for the money in a Group A showdown on Thursday.

Men’s Competition Scenarios

Most of the suspense has been taken out of the Men’s Pool as the semifinal participants are now set. In Group A, Brazil and Chile will advance, while Argentina and the Dominican Republic will advance out of Group B. Those teams will play each other Thursday to determine who will get the higher seed. Accordingly, the lower 4 teams are also set. Canada and Venezuela from Group A and Mexico and the USA from Group B. Again those teams will be seeded based on their head to head matches on Thursday.

Women’s Competition Scenarios

In Group A, Argentina and Mexico have secured spots in the semifinals. Those two teams will battle on Wednesday to see who avoids Brazil in the Semifinals. For the Mexican Women, this is surely a major Handball milestone. In Group B, there is some suspense for the second spot due to the earlier Dominican Republic – Uruguay draw. Currently, the Dominican Republic has a 35 goal differential lead over Uruguay, but that will be narrowed when the Dominicans take on Brazil in the first match of the day. The USA will then have the opportunity to play the role of spoiler when they face Uruguay later in the evening. Uruguay will know exactly how many goals they need to beat the USA by to advance and the USA should have the incentive to keep that number down or better, simply beat the Uruguayans.

PANAM Games: USA Women fall to Dominican Republic

Posted on October 18, 2011 by John Ryan

The Dominican Republic stages a big second half comeback for a 33-26 victory over the USA

Commentary: I did not have the opportunity to see any of this afternoon match, but the key numbers are simple:

Halftime Score: USA 16, Dominican Republic 11
Final Score: USA 26, Dominican Republic 33

Based on what I saw in the first USA match Saturday against Brazil, I can only surmise that a lack of conditioning and depth played a major role in the final outcome of this match.

The loss eliminates the USA from the semifinals. They will have one more shot at main round redemption on Wednesday when they take on Uruguay. A victory over Uruguay will place them 3rd in the group and will give them an easier cross-over match in the consolation bracket.

USA Federation Summary: http://usateamhandball.org/news/2011/10/17/borg-s-10-not-enough-as-usa-women-defeated-by-the-dominican-republic/45035

Video Highlights: http://deportesus.terra.com/road-to-2012/videos/0,,339473.html

PANAM Games: USA and Canadian Men lose and the battles for second place

Posted on October 17, 2011 by John Ryan

Brazil had no problems with Canada on Sunday, but the Canadian Men still have a shot at the semifinals

Both the USA and Canadian Men lost their first matches in Group play yesterday. The Canadian ran into a Brazil onslaught and lost 46-17 in a game in which the outcome was never in doubt. Despite this blowout, though, Canada can still qualify for the semis with victories over Chile and Venezuela.

Canada-Brazil Highlights: http://deportesus.terra.com/rumbo-a-2012/videos/0,,338880.html

In contrast the USA men lost a hard fought match which was closer than the final outcome of 27-22 indicates. In fact, the USA had a slim lead most of the first half which ended at 11-11. In the second half the USA appeared to take command in the first few minutes jumping out to a 16-13 lead in the first six minutes. Following a time out the Dominican Republic was able to settle things down and a USA scoring dry spell resulted in a 17-17 tie score with 14 minutes left to go in the match. The teams traded goals and with about 6 minutes to go in the match the Dominican Republic had a narrow 22-21 lead. When the Dominican Republic pushed the lead to 2 goals, however, the USA was not able to respond and appeared to panic with an overly aggressive defense which allowed the Dominican Republic to pad the eventual final scoring margin.

In terms of individual performance, Martin Clemons Axelsson was a steady and reliable performer throughout the match and led the team with 8 goals. Gary Hines struggled to get on track and the focused and physical Dominican Republic defense held him in check most of the evening. For 55 minutes, goalie Danny Caparelli was outstanding with several huge saves on some point blank shots. In the closing minutes, however, he was out of position away from the net allowing two easy goals (including one at the buzzer) for the Dominican Republic. With Mexico capable of beating the Dominican Republic, the bloated 5 goal deficit may come back to haunt the USA in their match against Mexico on Thursday night.

USATH: USA Men suffer loss to the Dominican Republic: http://usateamhandball.org/news/2011/10/16/usa-men-suffer-loss-to-the-dominican-republic/45016?ngb_id=42

Video Page http://deportesus.terra.com/rumbo-a-2012/videos.html (I couldn’t find a USA – Dominican Highlight, but one may get posted later today.)

The Battles for 2^nd Place

The first round of matches for both the Men’s and Women’s competition makes it fairly clear that the familiar sight of Brazil or Argentina at the top of their respective group is unlikely to change. Accordingly, the only interesting battles will be the ones for second place and to help everyone follow along here are the current standings for each group, throwing out all the matches with Argentina and Brazil

Group A Women (Argentina likely winner)

2) Mexico 1-0-0 2 Points +1 GD
3) Puerto Rico 0-0-0 0 Points 0 GD
4) Chile 0-0-1 0 Points -1 GD

Head to Head Results
Saturday, October 15, Mexico 18, Chile 17
Monday, October 17 Puerto Rico vs Mexico
Wednesday, October 19 Puerto Rico vs Chile

Group B Women (Brazil likely winner)

2) Dominican Republic 0-1-0 1 Point +0 GD
3) Uruguay 0-1-0 1 Point -0 GD
4) USA 0-0-0 0 Points +00 GD

Head to Head Results
Saturday, October 15 Dominican Republic 24, Uruguay 24
Monday, October 17 USA vs Dominican Republic
Wednesday, October 19 USA vs Uruguay
(Note: Due to the Dominican Republic-Uruguay draw, the goal differential in the matches against Brazil could also be important

Group A Men (Brazil likely winner)

2) Chile 1-0-0 2 Points +9 GD
3) Canada 0-0-0 0 Points 0 GD
4) Venezuela 0-0-1 0 Points -9 GD

Head to Head Results
Sunday, October 16, Chile 37, Venezuela 28
Tuesday, October 18 Canada vs Chile
Thursday, October 20 Canada vs Venezuela

Group B Men (Argentina likely winner)

2) Dominican Republic 1-0-0 2 Points +5 GD
3) Mexico 0-0-0 0 Points 0 GD
4) USA 0-0-1 0 Points -5 GD

Head to Head Results
Sunday, October 16, Dominican Republic 27, USA 22
Tuesday, October 18 Mexico vs Dominican Republic
Thursday, October 20 Mexico vs USA

VIDEO: PANAM Games day 1 match highlights

Posted on October 16, 2011 by John Ryan

Mexico celebrates after a key 18-17 victory over Chile

The terra.com platform has two minute highlight videos of all of yesterday’s matches. Here’s the direct links for Saturday’s games

Group A
Brazil – USA 50-10 http://deportesus.terra.com/rumbo-a-2012/videos/0,,338686.html
Dominican Republic – Uruguay 24-24 http://deportesus.terra.com/rumbo-a-2012/videos/0,,338747.html

Group B
Argentina – Puerto Rico 35-26 http://deportesus.terra.com/rumbo-a-2012/videos/0,,338713.html
Mexico – Chile 18-17 http://deportesus.terra.com/rumbo-a-2012/videos/0,,338757.html

Mexico scored a penalty shot with 15 seconds to secure the victory over Chile. This result might very well put Mexico through to the semifinals, although Puerto Rico might have something to say about that. The Dominican Republic – Uruguay draw assures that every second of their upcoming matches against the USA will be hard fought. The USA, of course, can still qualify for the semifinals by beating those opponents, but should they slip up and fall behind, the key tiebreaker for a Dominican Republic-Uruguay tie in the standings will be overall goal differential.

The Men’s competition starts today (Sunday, 16 October) and team USA takes on the Dominican Republic at 6:00 PM USA Central Time

AUDIO: Post game interview with US Women’s Coach, Chris Cappelmann

Posted on October 15, 2011 by John Ryan

Brazil scores 1 of their 50 goals in all out blitz of Team USA

Tournament favorite Brazil totally dominated the USA in all phases of the game, enroute to an easy 50-10 victory. Coach Chris Cappelmann discusses the match and what’s ahead for Team USA at the PANAM Games.

USA Team Handball: USA Women fall to Brazil in opener: Http://usateamhandball.org/news/2011/10/15/usa-women-fall-to-brazil-in-opener/45004?ngb_id=42

PANAM Games Open: Online video quality looks promising

Posted on October 15, 2011 by John Ryan

Team USA at the PANAM Games Opening Ceremonies

The PANAM Games have officially started with the traditional opening ceremonies in Guadalajara, Mexico. The festivities were shown live at www.terra.com and at www.espn3.com . Several Handball athletes can be seen in the ESPN3 replay: http://espn.go.com/watchespn/player/_/source/espn3/id/264854/size/condensed/ (Team USA enters the stadium at the 43:15 mark)

The terra.com website claims that they will have 12 channels in operation during the games and I was able to get a pretty decent video stream when sampling the videos they had available on demand. Hopefully, the same quality will be available for the matches

Terra.com on demand videos: http://deportesmx.terra.com.mx/rumbo-a-2012/videos.html

Canadian Delegation clip: http://deportesmx.terra.com.mx/rumbo-a-2012/videos/0,,338518.html
USA Delegation clip: http://deportesmx.terra.com.mx/rumbo-a-2012/videos/0,,338568.html

The USA women are scheduled to play against tournament favorites Brazil on Saturday, 15 October at 1:00 PM, (Guadalajara Local Time) which is the same as U.S. Central Time. (This is 7 hours behind for most Europeans.) If I find a Direct Link, I’ll post it and the USA website has indicated that they plan on having an open webchat running at the same time.

USA Teams arrive in Guadalajara

Posted on October 12, 2011 by John Ryan

Can Team USA keep a low profile and advance under the radar into the semifinals?

The USA Men and Women have arrived in Guadalajara for the Pan American Games. I spoke briefly last night with USA Women’s head coach, Chris Cappelmann and he indicated that they’ve been please so far with the welcome and accommodations. Part of that welcome was an offer to have a friendly scrimmage with the Mexican Women’s team yesterday. The result was a 21-21 tie, which is a far cry from the results the last time the two teams played back in 2008 at the Pan American Team Handball Federations (PATHF) Div I Championship. At that event the USA women lost twice to Mexico by scores of 31-23 and 33-14. There are few holdovers from the USA roster from those defeats, however, and I have no clue as to what changes may have taken place in the Mexican roster as well.

The Women’s Tournament gets underway this Saturday with the USA Women taking on tournament favorite, Brazil in Group play. Coach Cappelmann indicated that there were some plusses and minuses to playing the tournament favorite. On the minus side it will be tough to meet the Brazilians in their first fully competitive match. On the plus side, though, this scheduling will allow them to observe their other group rivals, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay prior to playing them. The Men won’t have that luxury, though, as straight out of the gate on Sunday, they will have a key match vs the Dominican Republic. With both sides knowing little about each other, how fast the teams can respond tactically could prove pivotal in that first match

Over the next two weeks, we plan to have several interviews with the Men’s and Women’s team coaches and players. In particular, we’ll shoot to have audio podcasts of the interviews posted as soon after the match as possible. For those that can’t wait to get their handball fix, be sure to check out the USA Federation and the Mundo Handball website, which has several articles on all the teams participating in the tournament.

Mundo Handball: http://www.mundohandball.com/

PANAM Games Schedule: http://usateamhandball.org/news/2011/09/12/pan-american-games-schedule/44549?ngb_id=42

Gazette Telegraph reports on USA Team Handball financial struggles

Posted on September 4, 2011 by John Ryan

The Gazette Telegraph highlights a funding fight between USA Team Handball and the USOC. Is USA Team Handball the guy in the water?

This past Tuesday, the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph posted an article highlighting USA Team Handball budget woes and the decline in funding grants the Federation has received from the USOC. For those that follow the sport closely, the controversy regarding what funding the USA Federation receives or doesn’t receive from the USOC is a long standing issue. What was striking to me (and others), however were some of the quotes in the article which called out the USOC.

Here’s a sampling of the article:

The USOC is primarily “going to fund sports that are going to win medals in London,” Pastorino said, maintaining that “there ought to be some credit given for building a long-term development program, a grassroots program, to get us to our ultimate goal. … The message we got this past winter completely counteracted that.” He claims the USOC told NGBs, “Forget about what we said in 2008. Medals talk. Make do with less.”

My reaction was, “Wow, looks like General Manager, Steve Pastorino was even more forthcoming then he was at the Press Conference a couple of weeks ago. He must have had a follow up interview with Brian Gomez, the Gazette Telegraph reporter.” Email follow-up with Steve Pastorino, however, indicated that this had not been the case, and the article quotes were based on the press conference from a couple of weeks ago. And sure enough, a review of the press conference audio shows that those quotes are transcribed pretty accurately. (You can hear for yourself (see below). At around 44:20. Christer Ahl asks the financial related questions.) In the context of an hour long press conference covering a lot of topics the comments were significant; in the context of a short newspaper article that focused on financial issue, though, they were even more so.

As I highlighted before, these financial troubles weren’t new “news” for most American Team Handball followers. Christer Ahl’s follow up article on the press conference had already touched on many of the key points from the press conference and Christer and I were both a little surprised with the candidness of some of Steve Pastorino’s comments regarding USOC support.

But, while Team Handball News might be a significant player in the Team Handball world we are, but a bit player in the sporting world (although, it should be noted there are a significant number of Colorado Springs visitors to our site). What we report reaches a smaller audience. The Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph isn’t the New York Times either, but Colorado Springs is still a decent sized city, and most importantly it’s the home of USOC HQ. You can bet that every single USOC executive read the article with interest and a little frown as it doesn’t paint the USOC in the best light. Additionally, the story has also been picked up by other outlets like MSNBC and Sports Business Journal Daily.

It remains to be seen if there’s any fallout from the article. If there is, it can’t be because there’s anything incorrect in terms of content. I’ve had my disagreements with how USA Team Handball has spent the money it’s received from the USOC and other sources, but you’ll find no disagreement from me regarding the inadequacy of the paltry sum Team Handball receives in comparison to other sports. For some time I’ve been working on a series of articles which breaks down just how inconsistent, non-transparent and arbitrary the USOC process is. Looks like it’s time to dust off the draft, clean it up and post it.

Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph (30 Aug 2011): USA Team Handball in financial fight with USOC: http://www.gazette.com/sports/fight-124178-financial-handball.html

THN (18 Aug 2011): USA Men’s Team getting ready for PANAM Games: https://teamhandballnews.com/2011/08/usa-mens-team-getting-ready-for-panam-games/

THN (19 Aug 2011): AUDIO: USATH Press Conference: https://teamhandballnews.com/2011/08/audio-usath-press-conference/

THN (3 Jan 2011): The Budget Shell Game: https://teamhandballnews.com/2011/01/the-budget-shell-game/

US says no to 2020 Olympics Bid: No free ticket for U.S Team Handball until 2028?

Posted on August 25, 2011 by John Ryan

2012 London Olympic Tickets: 2028 might be the soonest we'll see Summer Olympic tickets with a U.S. City .

The U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) recently announced that the U.S. will not put in a bid to host the 2020 Olympics. Still stinging from two back to back losses (New York’s 2012 and Chicago’s 2016 bid) the determination was made that the USOC needed to first renegotiate the revenue sharing agreement between the USOC and IOC. The USOC currently receives 20% of the IOC’s Global sponsorship deals and 12.75% of the U.S. TV rights. Several members of the IOC Executive Committee aren’t too happy with this arrangement as their nations don’t get any of this money. And as these are the same guys that vote for host city the calculated decision was made to not compete until that issue is resolved.

This decision to forgo 2020 could very well mean that the U.S. might not host a Summer Olympics until 2028 at the earliest. This is because there is already some strong talk of Denver, Reno and other cities putting together a bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics. There’s no guarantee that a U.S. bid would win, but assuming that the funding differences are worked out, I’m guessing the U.S. would be the odds on favorite. A successful 2022 bid then would make a 2024 bid in the same country a very unlikely prospect. Which means that 2028 could be the next realistic opportunity for a U.S. based Summer Olympics and the automatic qualification it provides for team sports.

So, if you’re a U.S Team Handball athlete with Olympic dreams it should be pretty clear now that the only way you’re likely to fulfill that dream is to earn it via qualification. 17 years is a long time to wait unless, you’re around 12 years old now, an extremely durable athlete or a goalie.

For the U.S. Federation this reality means that in addition to no qualification, there will be no host city looking to give the sport a boost like Atlanta did in the 1990’s. At least not until around 2021 when the U.S. might be gearing up for a 2028 bid. It also means no easy sponsorship deals (relatively easier, anyway) as an ancillary benefit to hosting either. And it goes without saying, that there will be plus up from the USOC. (In past Olympics, the USOC has provided more funding as while they know medaling is unlikely, they still want to put forward a respectable performance on home soil. Not to mention the fact, that they’ve got more sponsorship funding to throw around anyway.)

But while this is a blow, it at least makes long range planning simpler. For instance, there’s certainly no need to factor in Olympic host city prospects into your resident program location decision. And it makes it very clear that the only way to move way forward is with a better team and overall program. This may seem like an obvious reality no matter where the Olympics is located, but I saw firsthand how guaranteed qualification for Atlanta 1996 resulted in at least some level of complacency in the 1990’s. It’s human nature to ease up a bit and even great teams get a little concerned that not having to worry about qualification might make them a little soft in terms of preparation. On the other hand, if you know that you’ve got to win to qualify, that all but guarantees greater effort. And for the foreseeable future Olympic qualification will either mean PANAM Games Gold or knocking off two European teams in a qualification tournament. Anything less will mean staying home.

Associated Press (22 Aug 2011): US pulls out of bid for 2020 Summer Olympics: http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=ap-usoc-no2020bid

AUDIO: USATH Press Conference

Posted on August 19, 2011 by John Ryan

Christer Ahl provided a good summary of yesterday’s press conference, but for even more insight check out the full audio of the press conference now available on the USA Team Handball website. In particular, I found the discussion towards the end concerning finances and training in the U.S. vs. overseas interesting. The audio clocks in at a little over an hour.

USATH (18 Aug 11): Audio from the Men’s national roster announcement: http://usateamhandball.org/news/2011/08/18/audio-from-the-men-s-national-team-roster-announcement/44212

(Note: The audio is a wma file (vice mp3) which will may not be compatible with some computer and mp3 players. You also may need to download/save the file first before opening to play.)