Your independent news and commentary outlet for the Olympic sport of Team Handball
The big showdown last weekend saw #2 ranked Atlanta Team Handball (ATH) beat the #1 ranked Atlanta Metro Condors 38-31. ATH then promptly lost to upstart Benedict College 29-28 in a match decided by a penalty shoot-out. Going in to the final weekend the current standings are:.
Team Wins Loses Goal +/-
Atlanta Team Handball 7-1 +72
Benedict College 5-1 +56
Atlanta Metro Condors 6-2 +78
Georgia State 1-7 -103
According to the Canadian Handball Federation Website: http://www.handball.ca/newsletters/70.doc
“Senior men Pan American Championship is likely to be celebrated in Brazil, April 10th to April 16th, 2006. As the PATHF executive adopted a competitive structure and ranked Canada 9th in the PATHF (first eight countries are competing), we are yet to know if Canada will compete or not. In this matter, they are having an extraordinary meeting in Feb. 15 – 19 in Argentina to deal with this unfair matter.“
Canada placed 3rd at the last Pan Am Handball Championships in 2004, but apparently either did not participate or placed poorly at the 2002 Championships and at the 2003 Pan Am Games, resulting in a 9th place aggregate placement. Brazil and Argentina are overwhelming favourites to place 1st and 2nd, but Canada would certainly also be considered the odds on favourite for the 3rd place and qualification for the 2007 World Championships. Using a formula which puts equal weight on the results from 2002 to decide who participates is quite simply absurd. The tournament should either have preliminary qualification games or be structured to allow all interested Pan Am nations to participate.
The US is currently ranked 3rd, and so has qualified for the tournament. It will be interesting to see, however, if the US does in fact field a team for this tournament which is now only 2.5 months away.
Team Handball News is pleased to announce the results of our inaugural poll for the Top 5 Men’s Club teams in the United States.
1. Atlanta Metro Condors (3) 11-0-1 [5-0-1]
2. Atlanta Team Handball 10-1-1 [6-0-0]
3. New York City 9-0-1 [9-0-1]
4. Cal Heat 3-0-0 [3-0-0]
5. Garden City (1) 0-0-0
Others Receiving Votes: NJ-Adelphi, Cleveland, Utah
The esteemed panel of voters consists of Andrew Washington, Christian Latulippe, Bogdan Pasat, and Karl Laundy.
Poll Methodology:
– Voters submit their top 5 teams (in order)
– Points for each vote are awarded as follows:
#1 – 5 points
#2 – 4 points
#3 – 3 points
#4 – 2 points
#5 – 1 point
– Each individual ranking is then pooled for a total ranking
– There are 4 voters (1 from each National Region)
– Votes will be done roughly once a month
Poll Philosophy and Guidelines (Guidance provided to the voters):
– Current performance in this year’s season should carry the maximum weight. If a team is not actively participating in any matches this should carry significant weight in your assessment. We are trying to encourage competition. Sure, there are many teams that can probably play no games during the regular season and still be a contender (heck, even win Nationals). The purpose of the poll is not to predict who will win Nationals. The purpose is to acknowledge and reward the active programs.
– Quality of competition should carry significant weight. If a team is playing good teams that should be rewarded. A team can have some quality losses and still be considered better than a team solely beating up on weak competition.
– Margin of victory should carry some weight. If a team is winning by large margins that does say something. Of course, it could also say something about the competition they are playing against.
– Significant attention should be paid to inter-regional competition like the Carolina Tournaments. This can provide a rough assessment of the quality of one region against another.
– More recent games should generally carry more weight than games from a couple of months ago.
– Previous National Championship performance can be considered. While these results are old, they are also relevant in that teams are generally at full strength and it is the best opportunity for inter-regional comparisons.
Current Record of Results
The poll, of course, can only be accurate if all relevant results are included. For the first poll, all results (since Oct 2005) in the 3 active USA Leagues, as well as the results of the Tar Heel tournament in October were included. A composite record of the clubs that were considered and their W-L-T record is provided here:
If you feel the record for your club is inaccurate or additional tournaments should be included please contact us with the results of those matches and we will update the database for the next poll.
See the press release from the NETHC site: http://www.nethc.org/news/1_25_06.html
The Brazil Men’s National Team has been very active in January as part of their preparation for the PANAM Handball Championships in April. They played 3 matches against Cuba (all 3 wins 28-19, 31-30, and 28-24). They then travelled to Spain where they played in a in a tournament against Spain, Ukraine and Russia and followed that up with a couple matches vs some top Spanish Club teams and Japan.
13 January 22 Brazil vs Russia 32
14 January 18 Brazil vs Spain 37
15 January 22 Brazil vs Ukraine 28
18 January 19 Brazil vs BM Aragon 30
20 January 28 Brazil vs Japan 30
22 January 30 Brazil vs Barcelona 39
This trip has probably been a minor disappointment for Brazil, as I’m sure they’d like to move to the top tier of national programs like their Women’s team has. These results show that they still have quite a ways to go yet. It’s probably safe to say, however, that they weren’t fielding a full strength team. In particular, their top player, Bruno Souza, who plays with 1st Division Goppingen, has been injured and did not play. If you add a consistent backcourt scorer, I would guess these games could have been closer.
Matt Van Houten, the Athlete’s Advisory Council Representative, has informed us that it was his understanding that only Matt, Jim Thome, Jan O'Shea and Theresa Eckstrom had submitted written replies to the complaint filed by the USOC. Additionally, he indicated that there is a telephonic hearing scheduled for 2:00 p.m. MST on Tuesday, 24 January, in connection with the decertification process. As of Friday afternoon, the only individuals who had notified the USOC that they were going to participate in the hearing were Matt, Jim Thome, Jan O'Shea, Theresa Eckstrom and Peter Siskind.
Furthermore, Matt indicated that he had stressed to the appropriate individuals at the USOC that USA Team Handball has several urgent issues that need immediate attention: specifically the Men’s PANAM Championships in Brazil (10-16 April), the Women’s National Team program, Club Nationals and College Nationals. The feedback that he has received it that the USOC’s first priority is making sure that the team handball athletes, both national team members and the general athlete population, do not miss out on the upcoming opportunities to compete.
He is hopeful that we will soon learn what the “plan” for Team Handball in 2006 is and that we he would give us an update following the meeting on Tuesday.
Last weekend Atlanta Team Handball (ATH) and Atlanta Metro took turns beating a young Georgia State Club by scores of 30-10 and 31-20 respectively. The current standings for the SETHC are below. On 29 January, ATH and Atlanta Metro will meet in a battle for SETHC supremacy.
Team Wins Loses Goal +/-
ATH 6 0 66
A. Metro 5 1 70
Benedict 3 1 50
Ga State 1 5 -95
Detailed stats and scores are available by downloading this [link=https://teamhandballnews.com/docs/SETHC Stats.xls]file[/link]
The first round of games for this new conference took place this past weekend in Fremont, California. Cal Heat dominated the competition, winning all 3 of their matches. The remaining teams, LA THC, Salt Lake Warriors, and Santa Clarita each posted 1 win and 2 losses. More detail on the matches will be available soon at the Offical WTHC website: http://www.wthc.thsantaclarita.com/
This short article is unique in that Team Handball is in the title. Previous news reports have only mentioned Team Handball after first discussing the USA Volleyball decertification complaint.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/summer/2006-01-09-handball_x.htm
Also, still no word as to whether any Board Member responded to the USOC Complaint.
A short Associated Press (AP) story briefly highlights the ongoing decertification process. As it is an AP wire it probably will be making its way into several newspapers.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OLY_USOC_VOLLEYBALL_COMPLAINT?SITE=WFSB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Additionally, Mike Hurdle has informed us that he did not send a response to the USOC complaint. We have still not heard as to whether any other Board Member responded or not.
As of this hour, neither party within USATH has released any information on whether they have filed a response to the USOC complaint by the deadline this past Friday, January 6. Neither has the USOC released any information on whether they have received any response. We have received some notes citing confidentiality, possibly explaining the lack of information.
TeamHandballNews.com understands that confidentiality issues may limit full disclosure at this time, but we hope to be informed soon, as a minimum, on the current status of the process. Any Board Member who wishes to inform the USA membership should feel free to post either an informal update in the chatbox/comments sections or to contact us directly.
[link=http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-oly7jan07,1,4764431.story]The article[/link] is primarily focused on a recent complaint filed by Beach Volleyball players to decertify USA Volleyball. To underscore the issue, the article also highlights that the USOC has several ongoing or recent disputes with other Olympic Sport National Governing Bodies (NGB). Team Handball merits 3 paragraphs. To my knowledge this is the first reporting on the governance issues with Team Handball by the mainstream media.
No, this lawsuit has nothing to do with the USOC (as far as I know). But, if you ever wondered whether it’s a good idea to have insurance in place prior to playing Team Handball this article might answer that question for you.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060106/METRO02/601060348/1003/METRO
I find it amusing that the lawyer is quoted as saying “the Team Handball game is a non-contact sport.”