The US Women’s National Team is featured in an article on the by the official Women’s European Championship website: http://www-01.sportresult.com/federations/ehf/HBEURO2006Women/CMS_Files/452_item.asp?root_id=28&node_id=452&item_id=2671

Based on the scores and commentary in their trip blog, it looks like the trip was a measured success. They ended up with 2 wins against Div 2 teams, 2 losses against Div 1 teams, and a loss to a Swedish U-20 team. Although, two of the losses were by a substantial margin, it looks like they were able to keep the scores close at half time. Part of taking it to the next level, though, is putting in a top performance for 60 full minutes. It should be interesting to see if they can do that for the upcoming best of 3 series with Canada in January.

Trip Blog: http://www.wntabroad.blogspot.com/

The USA Women’s National Team is currently touring in Sweden. They will play a total of five games, engage in six training sessions, and attend four matches at the European Championships in Stockholm. For more information check the following links:

Press Release: http://www.usateamhandballwomen.com/News/Dec1_06.php
Trip Blog: http://www.wntabroad.blogspot.com/

According to Matt Van Houten’s website Darrick Heath and Chris Cappelmann will jointly coach the Men’s Team for the PANAM Games qualification matches in January 2007.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=73440975&blogID=200076170&MyToken=472d47d1-22ff-43ff-8a20-d16ff383523a

Two veteran members of the US Team Handball Women’s National Team (WNT) – Team Captain Tomuke “T” Ebuwei and West Point alum Jennie Choi are now playing with Swedish Club, Kroppskultur in Uddevalla, Sweden. These American imports join several Australian and British players who are also playing Handball in either Denmark or Sweden.

USA Women’s National Team Press Release: http://www.usateamhandballwomen.com/News/Nov10_06.php
Player Blog: http://www.wnteuropeaninvasion.blogspot.com/
Kroppskultur Club Website: www.kroppskultur.com
Previous THN Article: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.135
British Website Article: http://britishhandball.worldhandball.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?menuid=1093&itemid=921

Former USA National Team goalie and USA Team Handball Board Member, Italo Zanzi, has lost his election bid for New York’s 1st Congressional District. Faced against a 2 term incumbent and an election tide that will swing control of the House or Representative to the Democrats, the outcome is no surprise. Various press reports on Zanzi’s campaign were favorable, including this Long Island Newsday editorial http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpbis314954395oct31,0,4891008.story?coll=ny-editorials-headlines, While the newspaper endorsed his opponent they note that “Zanzi has tremendous potential. Down the road there should be a place for a bright, energetic man like him in public life.”

Election Results
Timothy Bishop (D) 96,921 votes (61%)
Italo A. Zanzi (R) 61,271 votes (39%)

Italo Zanzi Official Site: http://www.zanzi2006.com/

ESPN’s “Olympic Athlete,” Kathryne Bertine, writes 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 article is easily the most detailed and lengthy piece on Team Handball I have ever read from a main stream US news outlet. Bertrine didn’t make the team, but she gives a pretty good description of the sport and the trials and tribulations of the athletes on the US Women’s National Team.

ESPN Article: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=olympianpart2
Her personal website: http://www.kathrynbertine.com/

Notre Dame Universitz Grad and USA Team Handball Goallie Erika Bohn is featured in this news article: http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/NEWS/61016012/1007/SPORTS

And bizarrely, at least for this American, I recently saw a Kiel Champions League match where the Notre Dame fight song was played. I'm guessing there isn't an unknown Knute Rockne connection to Handball and they just find it to be a rousing tune. (Note to Euro Readers: Don't even try to understand this reference)

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

The semifinal match between the US and Canada women from this past Summer’s USA Cup is available at this link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1251699336614243291&pr=goog-sl

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.

In August the USOC sent out a survey to gather input from anyone in the United States involved or interested in Team Handball. The survey consist of 3 parts:

1) A description concerning any existing or planned Team Handball programs
2) Sports development ideas and suggestions
3) E-mail addresses that you would like added to a list to receive further information from the USOC

Stakeholder Survey Memo from USOC: https://teamhandballnews.com/request.php?19
Team Handball: National Assessment Survey: https://teamhandballnews.com/request.php?20

The survey indicates a due date of 30 August 2006. However, since an email glitch resulted in the survey not reaching some interested parties in a timely manner, the USOC has indicated that they will still review and consider your completed surveys. Please send your surveys in as soon as possible to either jay.warwick@usoc.org or mike.Cavanaugh@usoc.org.

Yet another USA amateur sport Board has looked over the abyss and decided to vote themselves out of office. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-0608250129aug25,1,5081617.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
http://www.usaboxing.org/default.asp

Commentary: I wonder how in the world they used to function with a 200+ member Board of Governors? It’s also surprising to see that a substantially higher profile sport (compared to Team Handball) has significant difficulty fundraising

Side note: Ed Weichers, the interim CEO of USA boxing, was my instructor for boxing class at the Air Force Academy 23 years ago. Talk about a recruiting tool for a club sport. Every single male Freshman at the military service academies is required to take 10 lessons in boxing their Freshman year. If you expose 900 people to a sport, with even a 1% interest rate to join the club program you’re doing great. This is why the service academies do so well in College Boxing.

This article in the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph http://olympics.gazette.com/fullstory.php?id=6794 highlights some of the hurdles a 24 hour Olympics TV channel will face in the US. If this channel does come to fruition it will be an excellent platform for Team Handball broadcasts.

The USOC has dropped Philadelphia and Houston from the short list of potential bid cities for the 2016 Olympics. http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1319642&secid=3 The remaining cities are Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. I think the prospect that that the USOC might simply decide to not bid for the 2016 Olympics extremely unlikely. Still, it’s good posturing to ensure that these cities develop bids that are more likely to win IOC votes. Also, don’t be surprised if the US National Championships takes place at one of these three cities in the near future.