My First Handball Game

When I was a sophomore in high school, my good friend Ashley and I were in the same PE class. We've been friends since we played AAU basketball together, and we also took early bird weight training and conditioning class together with the football team in addition to our regular PE class our freshman and sophomore years in high school. At one point we had a student-teacher who was a fan of the more unconventional sports. He wasn't always in to us playing hoop, dodge ball, etc and decided to introduce us to a game we had never heard of: handball. He told us that all the Europeans play it (at 16, who cared about what the Europeans were doing!?), and that he was going to teach us. Alright, so we balked a little bit, because after all, we were on the girl's basketball team, and why is anything besides basketball important??? Oh my 16 year old self...

We began learning handball, much to our dismay. However, it turned out to be not that bad. It was kind of interesting, and came to be something that we had fun with. Don't get me wrong; we weren't that good at it, because we always thought we were travelling (taking too many steps in basketball vs. the allowed 3 in handlball). At any rate, I learned how to play handball.

Fast forward twelve! years, and here I was, back in the gym, watching a European handball game! My room mate Svenja is friends with Benni who plays for one of the local teams (about half an hour away). He had invited her to come, and she invited me to join her. I was all for this, and have wanted to watch a handball game for a long time. I have to say, it was really fun! I had a great time watching the game, and it was fun too because when I didn't understand some of the rules, Svenja was able to help me understand what was going on. She has also played handball for many years. I also learned new words, like the German word for referee: der Schiedsrichter. Benni invited us to come to his game again next Sunday, so I am looking forward to seeing another game. Another one of Svenja's friends also takes tickets for one of the Bundesliga teams (like the NBA of handball), and hopefully we will be able to see a first-class handball game as well. I'm looking forward to it!

Here are some stills and a video of last Sunday's game. Enjoy!