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The Game
Equipment & Play
A team handball ball is an inflated sphere covered with leather. For the men's game it has a circumference of 58 to 60 cm (22.8 to 23.6 in) and weighs 425 to 480 g (15.0 to 16.9 oz). For the women's game it has a circumference of 54 to 56 cm (21.3 to 22.0 in) and weighs 325 to 400 g (11.5 to 14.1 oz). The court is 20 m (21.87 yd) wide and 40 m (43.74 yd) long.
A team handball match lasts one hour, divided into 30-minute halves, with a halftime intermission of 10 minutes. Each team is allowed one time-out of one minute per half. There are two referees, one in each half of the court. Each team has seven players on the court, six who play both offense and defense, and one goalkeeper, respectively. A match begins with a throw-off (a free pass from one teammate to another) from the center, and play proceeds as the players throw, pass, and dribble the ball. Players may stop, throw, catch, bounce, or strike the ball with their hands, arms, head, body, thighs, or knees. The object of the game is to score by throwing the ball past the defense and goalkeeper into the opposing goal. Each score counts for one point. The goalkeeper is also allowed to use his or her feet, but only to stop the ball from entering the goal, not to kick the ball. The goalkeeper is also the only player who is allowed to play within the goal area, a roughly semicircular area about 15 m (16.40 yd) wide along the baseline and extending to a flattened arc 6 m (6.56 yd) from the goal.
Players may hold the ball for a maximum of three seconds and may take a maximum of three steps while holding it. These restrictions do not apply to the goalkeeper in his or her goal area. However, when the goalkeeper leaves the goal area, movement and dribbling rules apply as they would to any court player. The ball can be passed in any direction and also rolled along the ground. A player may fist the ball (strike the ball with a closed fist) but may not throw it in the air and then fist it. Team handball is a fluid and fast game, with the ball moving from one end of the court or field to the other with great speed. Most of the action is concentrated around the goal areas.
The governing body of the sport is the International Handball Federation, founded in 1946 and located in Basel, Switzerland. Worldwide, there are now more than 130 member federations. The governing body in the United States is the United States Team Handball Federation, located in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Uniforms are numbered 1 through 20, with the numbers at least 20cm high on the back and 10cm high on the front. Goalkeepers are usually assigned numbers 1, 12 or 16. Team captains also wear an armband at least four centimeters high and a different color from their uniforms.
Despite the intense physical action and frequent spills and collisions in team handball, players are not allowed to wear face or head protection. Jewellery is also not allowed. Glasses may be worn, but must have soft frames and be held in place with an elastic strap.
How To Watch It
One of the downsides of Team Handball coverage in North America is that relatively short shrift is given to some of the most intriguing and exciting sports that don't happen to be big favorites here. You'll probably have to be resourceful or lucky if you're going to catch more than a glimpse of team handball, as explosive and exciting as any sport at the Olympics.
Speed and Skill
The easiest way to describe team handball is as water polo on solid ground with elements of basketball and soccer – foot speed, dribbling, passing, arms-up defenses and trying to hurl a ball past a goalie and into a net are all part of the game.
But team handball's blend of speed, grace, skill and raw, athletic power on offence and tough physical resistance to that speed and skill on defense could just as easily be a definition of hockey. In fact, it's those qualities that make team handball's proponents all the more baffled over its small following in Canada. After all, team handball has all the aggressiveness and fast-paced, up-and-down flow and wild action around the goal, not to mention rugged, fearless play, of classic fire wagon hockey.
"Team handball is a very physical sport," says Warren Poncsak, a Regina-based coach of Canada's men's handball team at the 1999 Pan Am Games. "At the risk of our insurers hearing about this, at an adult level, it’s a controlled contact sport, where the defense tries to contain or absorb the offensive player’s momentum. But it's a clean sport – the contact that is allowed is face-to-face. You can’t hit from behind or from the side."
The Scoring
It's also a very high-scoring affair with scores like 27-24 common – and that's at just one point per goal. As if the game wasn't already skewed toward offence, the rules ensure that the ball keeps moving – players can only hold the ball for three seconds, and the referee can at any time strip a team of possession if he or she decides it isn’t trying hard enough to score.
Crisp, creative ball movement is paramount to setting up the many scoring opportunities in team handball. Since no players are allowed inside the six-meter arc that outlines the goal area, the offensive team works the ball quickly around the perimeter to find a player with an open shot. Passes can be hard or feathered to teammates – some passes are never even held, but simply flicked or tipped to a teammate in mid-air. That in itself is a considerable skill, given that the ball weighs about half a kilogram.
The Shots
An attacking shot, the jump throw.
The real sight, though, is the shooting. Players may not be able to stand in the goal area, but they can soar over it, as long as they throw the ball before they land. So you'll see jump throws, in which players run up to the wall of defenders at the six-meter line and leap above them for a clear shot at the goal. Still more spectacular is the fall away throw, in which the shooter lunges through the air, twisting into a nearly horizontal position and not releasing the ball until he or she has feinted the goalkeeper once or twice and is about to hit the ground. To make things more difficult for the goalkeeper, players apply resin to their hands to help them put extra spin on their shots.
Neither of those throws is as powerful as the standing throw, which can be made while standing still or on the run and which is often used by backcourt players trying to surprise the goalkeeper or simply if an attacker has a clear lane to the goal.
And when attackers are fouled, they might be awarded the highest-percentage shot of all – the penalty throw taken from the seven-meter line with no one but the goalkeeper standing between them and the goal.
Defending
Because the game is so fast and fluid, teams almost never play man-to-man defense. There are two primary kinds of zone defense. The 0-6, or flat defense, lines all the defenders up along the six-meter line. The stepped defense positions one or more defenders in front of his or her teammates to prevent long shots from the backcourt and to take away passing lanes.
"The defense almost acts like linebackers, trying to block shots and passes," Poncsak explains, "and they're pretty physical. The goal is to disrupt the offence and maybe draw a foul, but avoid a penalty."
Positions
Player positions on the team handball court.
A handball team is at an advantage if it is taller overall than its opponents, provided its players aren’t just lumbering oak trees. Quickness and power will win out over sheer size.
"Team handball players are a little smaller than basketball players, and one of the beauties of handball is that’s it’s possible for all body types to play. You don’t have to be huge, although it can help," says Poncsak.
The center is the team’s field general, directing both the offence and defense. Centers also tend to be the burliest player on the team, willing and able to set picks and thrive in a grinding game.
The circle runner is quick and savvy, moving between opposing defenders to either create openings for teammates to shoot or to get into a good scoring position himself or herself.
The right and left-wingers are fast, shifty players who patrol the sides of the court, drawing away the defense to open up the middle or getting into position for a quick shot from an bad angle that might catch the goalkeeper by surprise. They’re also responsible for keeping opposing wingers in check on defense.
The biggest players are usually the right and left backcourt players, who are generally six-foot-six or better in the men’s game. On defense, they keep tabs on the opposing circle runner and try to block shots. They’re also the hardest shooters on the team, capable of either penetrating the defensive wall with a long shot or moving quickly and powerfully toward the wall to make running shots.
Goalkeeper Technique
The goalkeeper is the only person allowed to stand inside the goal area and the only player allowed to play the ball below the knees. And that’s pretty much where the perks end. If they do their job well, goalkeepers basically become the target in a high-powered game of murder ball. Players launch themselves headlong toward the goalkeeper to release hard shots with a leather ball from only a few meters away, while the goalie moves out of the net to cut down the angle and uses his or her fast reflexes and entire body to deflect shots. Catching the ball with their hands or against their stomachs or chests at these speeds from this close in would just be too difficult, not to mention painful, considering that the goalkeepers do not wear protective equipment – not even helmets.
Team Handball is not new internationally, but most Americans were first exposed to the sport during the Centennial Olympic Games 1996 in Atlanta, GA. Although the sport is the “second” most popular sport in the world, competition here in the United States is just beginning to build. Building a new sport is challenging in the US. Basketball, Baseball, Football and others need support and are the focus of many parents and sponsors. Team Handball offers a chance to stand out as a sport supporter. This is a new, emerging and dynamic sport in which corporations can differentiate themselves. |
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