All About Handball
The United States is a different sporting environment than the rest of the world in lots of ways — American Football is king, soccer is of debatable worth, etc. — but its lack of handball as a major sport is the single most confusing difference. Handball seems ideally suited for the American sports landscape. So much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if a single spark started a major growth of handball in this country. I’d love it!
How Does Handball Work?
Handball is played by teams of seven players – six and a goalie – on an indoor court roughly the size of a basketball court. In fact, in the last Olympics, it was played on the Olympic basketball court. The object of the game is to throw a ball about two to four inches smaller than a volleyball into a goal almost as wide and a little bit shorter than a field hockey goal. Like basketball, players are restricted from running with the ball indefinitely. Unlike basketball’s relatively stringent traveling rule (yes, even though it almost never gets enforced,) players in handball are only required to pass or dribble the ball after three complete steps. The more meaningful restriction in handball is a territorial one. No field player on offense or defense is allowed to step into an area around each goal starting from six meters or almost twenty feet from the goal and curving around on either side. Players on offense are allowed to leap into that area as long as they shoot or pass the ball before landing in it. Goals are common and in the hour-long game, scores of up to 35 goals on either side are normal.
Why do People Like Watching Handball?
As an American sports fan, watching handball is like discovering a new continent ripe for the taking. Handball has all the teamwork, strategy, athleticism, physicality, and hand-using of all of our favorite sports and is higher scoring than them all. It’s no surprise that Bill Simmons, dean of a particular brand of American sports writing, has been campaigning for years for the U.S. to simply field a team of American basketball players in this event and see if they can win.
Check out some highlights from the 2012 Olympics:
What are the different events?
Handball simply has a men’s and a women’s competition.
How Dangerous is Handball?
Handball is pretty dangerous. It’s a full contact sport with lots of moving parts. Playing goalie in handball is not only a usually thankless task but a bruising one as well. In a recent New York Times article about handball, the job of being a handball goalie was described as extremely difficult on the mind and body:
Handballs weigh just over a pound. Opponents will jump into the goalkeeper’s D-Zone, equivalent to soccer’s penalty area, and while airborne hurl the handball at speeds approaching 100 miles an hour, at point-blank range. The goalkeeper’s job is to get something, anything, in the way: chest, legs, arms or face… the risk of injury is also high. [Goaltender Thierry] Omeyer missed three months last year after an operation to fix a ripped biceps sustained while making a close-range save.
Expect all the injuries normal in basketball plus a few you’d expect from rugby.
What’s the State of Gender Equality in Handball?
Almost perfect. There are 12 women’s teams at the Olympics and 12 men’s teams. The only difference in the game between genders is that the women use a slightly smaller, slightly lighter ball. This reminds me of basketball where the debate of whether or not to lower the rim for the women’s game has raged for years. The argument for it would be that by adjusting a piece of equipment to accommodate women’s smaller (on average) bodies, it allows women to play a more similar game to men than they would be able to (on average) otherwise. Either way, it’s a small difference.
Links!
Bookmark the full Olympics schedule from NBC. Handball is from Saturday, August 6 to Sunday, August 21.
Read more about handball on the official Rio Olympics site.