AMERICA NEEDS WOMEN’S HANDBALL

Move over competitive eating, there’s a new, sexy addition to my favorite sports. Women’s handball is now seventh on that list. That’s right. I’m high on handball.

I’d been aware of the concept of handball but I didn’t realize that it was huge in Eastern Europe. It’s much more popular as a women’s sport and that’s probably ideal. I’d say it’s slightly more manly than volleyball, but I’m OK with that. There’s physical contact and they can actually score a ton of goals. And hey, who WOULDN’T like a sport that was included in the 1936 Olympics at Hitler’s request?

Profit Center is my favorite squadron

I’m making a push for women’s handball to come to the United States. The WNBA is one of the worst television products of all time. Don’t get mad and call me sexist because that’s malarky. This isn’t about equality or Title IX — it’s about ratings. Women’s handball would destroy the stinking pile of dung that is the WNBA in a matter of years. For your education, I’ve outlined a handful of appealing aspects of women’s handball.

THREAT OF VIOLENCE

The first reason I love handball is because it’s one of the few sports that allows physical contact between female players. As far as I can tell, it’s pretty much legal to do anything as long as the defender is in front of the offensive player. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:

The game is quite fast and includes body contact as the defenders try to stop the attackers from approaching the goal. Contact is only allowed when the defensive player is completely in front of the offensive player, i.e. between the offensive player and the goal, this is referred to as a player sandwich. Any contact from the side or especially from behind is considered dangerous and is usually met with penalties. When a defender successfully stops an attacking player, the play is stopped and restarted by the attacking team from the spot of the infraction or on the nine meter line. Unlike in basketball where players are allowed to commit only 5 fouls in a game (6 in the NBA), handball players are allowed an unlimited number of “faults,” which are considered good defense and disruptive to the attacking team’s rhythm.

Player sandwich? Sounds good to me. It seems like they actually get pretty nasty on occasion. Here are a few examples of handball testiness:

BEACH HANDBALL IS THE GREATEST

That is an actual referee... I think

Personally, I like my player sandwiches extra sandy. So beach handball is the greatest concept in history. It has all of the same physical contact — minus the clothes! A beach handball league would experience immediate success in the United States. The sport would need a creative marketing campaign and perhaps a name change to something like “Foxy Handball”. I can already envision an expansive “minor league” system to feed talent to the big leagues of beach handball. I gathered a bunch of “action shots” from beach handball games to prove my point. As reminder, I don’t take the pictures… I just post them.

 

MARQUEE SAME-SEX COUPLE

Katja Nyberg & Gro Hammerseng comprise one of the most powerful same-sex couples in the world and I think that’s awesome. They are two of the best handball players on the planet. It’s like if Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez were dating… and you weren’t extremey homophobic. Below is a video of Katja Nyberg as she dominates. Skip the first minute tribute to their relationship and you may also want to just see the destruction after the 3:30 mark. As you can see, this sport would actually be somewhat entertaining to watch even without the scantily clad women.

RHYMES WITH DNA

Handball also attracts a number of beautiful women. I have to say that I was shocked at the amount of pretty girls that played this sport. I combed the Internets to find out about a number of world class handballers. Most of them are Eastern European or Nordic since the sport is most popular in those regions. But there is also an Italian girl in the mix here and I suspect that Mystery Girl (below) is Greek. Also of note, a Spanish handball team posed nude for Interviu magazine a few years ago.

Adriana Nechita-Olteanu

 

Irena Ignatova

 

Isabella Ferroni

Linn Jorum Sulland

 

Tapai Szabina

 

Natasa Kocevska

 

Sandra Bošnjak

 

Mia Hundvin

 

THE (GREEK?) MYSTERY GIRL

I don’t know who Mystery Girl is. All I know is that she played for Profit Center and I suspect it was at the Karavi Schinias Beach Handball Tournament in 2008. I wasn’t able to scrounge up anything else on her using any of that information. I will give somebody up to $10 if they can find out her name and verify it somehow. Here’s a list of players that may or may not have played for Profit Center in that tournament:

* Βασιλειάδου Αθηνά,
* Δήμου Κρίστυ,
* Πουρνάρα Κινή,
* Τσαχουρίδου Μαρία,
* Κατσικάρη Κική
* Μπουφίδου Σταυρίνα.

 

HANDBALL: COMING TO A TV NEAR YOU

I think it’s safe to say I’ve swayed many of you. Would you rather watch beach handball, WNBA, or poker? Perhaps a re-run of the ESPY Awards? Eff that. If you aren’t convinced, I’ve included more visual arguments below.

 

Tags: Adriana Nechita-Olteanu, balonmano, handball, irena ignatova, linn jorum sulland, mia hundvin, natasa kocevska, pallamano, profit centers, Sandra Bosnjak, tapai szabina, women, womens handball