Viking Magazine - March 2013 - 24

... continued from p. 22
The BBC called
handball a
" sleeper sport " at
the 2012 Olympics
in London. But
to those living in
parts of Europe,
North Africa, Asia
and Latin America,
the game is alive
and well.
a volleyball and a softball, up
and down an indoor court. They
run, dribble, pass, block, steal,
dodge and push until they're
able to throw the ball past
the other team's goalie, into a
soccer-like net, to score.
Handball features plenty of
body contact, and is typically
a high-scoring game. It's not
uncommon for both teams to
end a match with 20-plus goals.
This high-octane rush is one
thing that attracted Freed, 30,
to the game. He was introduced
to it in a high school gym class,
but developed a passion for it
while attending Colorado State
University [CSU] in Fort Collins.
" I grew up playing sports,
and I needed an outlet for
my competitive nature, " he
explains. " Then I remembered
handball. I contacted the sport's
national governing body, and
a few months later I founded
CSU's first club handball team. "
And he's been hooked for
the past 10 years. " Shooting
in handball is explosive, like a
monster [attack] in volleyball, or
a thunderous dunk in basketball, "
he says. " And because
there's a goalie, every shot is
contested. The shooter is trying
to anticipate where the openings
will be, and the goalie is trying
to trick the shooter into picking
the wrong spot. As a result, each
shot can be either immensely
satisfying or incredibly frustrating, "
Freed says.
GET ON THE BALL!
Interested in learning more about team
handball? Here are some resources to
get you started.
IN NORWAY:
handball.no
eurohandball.com/federations/nor/Norway
IN THE USA:
teamusa.org/USA-Team-Handball.aspx
usadth.tripod.com/rules.html
Search " Minnesota Team Handball " and
clubs in other states on Facebook.
IN CANADA:
handballcanada.ca/en/
handballcanada.com/
Handball Throughout History
While the sport's origins are
debated, records indicate that
handball-like games were
played well before the Middle
Ages. Tombstone carvings in
Athens that date to 600 B.C.
show depictions of it. In " The
Odyssey, " Homer describes
" Urania, " a handball-like game
played by the ancient Greeks.
And the term Fangballspiel,
literally " catch ball game, "
appears in songs written by
German lyrical poet Walther
von der Vogelweide in the
1100s and 1200s.
Near the end of the 19th
century, an outdoor version of
the game called " field handball "
was commonly played in
Denmark, Germany, Norway
and Sweden. Field handball
debuted in the Olympics in the
1936 Berlin Games.
The Danes are credited for
inventing indoor handball in
24 VIKING MARCH 2013
the 1940s. It wasn't included
in an Olympics until the 1972
Munich Games, when only men
had the opportunity to compete.
The Montreal games four years
later included women's teams.
Since then, handball has been
part of every Olympic Games
and today some version of the
sport is played on every habitable
continent on the globe.
Men's and Women's All-Stars
While the size of the ball is
the only technical differences
between men's and women's
handball, Freed says he notices
nuances between the men's and
women's game.
" The difference between
great men's handball and
great women's handball is the
balance between aggression
and technical prowess, " he
says. " With the men you see
more systems that lean on the
superiority of a couple of star
players with laser-rocket arms,
whereas the great women's
teams excel through superior
technique and team chemistry.
Go on YouTube and search
'Norway women's handball'
and you'll see what I mean, "
Freed says.
What will likely to pop up
in your search are videos of the
national team, which is known
affectionately in Norway as
håndballjentene (the handball
girls). Two standouts are Heidi
Løke and Linn Jorum Sulland.
Løke, 30, is the defending
women's International Handball
Federation World Player of
the Year, and in 2011 fans also
voted her as the world's best
female handball player.
sonsofnorway.com
http://www.handball.no http://www.eurohandball.com/federations/nor/Norway http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Team-Handball.aspx http://usadth.tripod.com/rules.html http://www.handballcanada.ca/en/ http://www.handballcanada.com/ http://www.sonsofnorway.com
Viking Magazine - March 2013

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