Handball Tournament

I've heard of a story about how my great-opa was saved from certain death by a sport called handball. Now many people now don't know what handball is. You're probably thinking that handball is like Racket Ball but with your hands not a racket. Well - it's not.

It's a team sport. It could be described as a mix between basketball and hockey, or basketball or soccer. Two teams play against each other with a with a fairly small ball that you pass between your team mates and try to score. You can only take three steps with the ball though and you can't enter the goalies crease. It sounds fairly simple and it is but it's still hard to play.

Anyway, on Saturday I went to a handball tournament at the University with the school. There were about 6 different schools there. The challenge though was that for many of the schools this was their second time at the tournament but for my school this was their first time. There were three teams for my school and each team was guaranteed three games. The first team I played had obviously been coming to the tournament for many years. They were the "jumping team" we named them because of their humongous, almost impossible to block, jump shots on goal. We lost 2 - 12. The second team we played was also very good. The "grabbing team" we named them because of one girl on the team who always grabbed the ball from our team. We lost 1 - 7. Our third game we played (the "fast team" because of their one fast runner who streamed from one side of the court to the other) was also very hard. But after all our other games we had definitely improved. I scored a goal. We lost 2 - 6. Not bad.

Now you may be thinking. "Oh - you must be bummed as you lost all your games." But no - I'm not bummed. I had a great time and learned a lot. In the end the second team for my school made it to the quarter finals. They lost to the "grabbing team." Too bad but still good for our first year at the tournament.

By the way on the side there is a slide-show of photos from the tournament.